The National Quality Forum's Measure Applications Partnership has submitted recommendations to HHS on performance measures under consideration for federal programs.
Here are five things to know about the recommendations.
1. MAP submitted recommendations to HHS for approximately 140 performance measures under consideration for use in 16 federal healthcare programs.
2. Approximately 60 of the measures are proposed for use in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System, a CMS program legislated by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.
3. This year's annual review of measures under consideration provided multiple themes. According to a news release, those include:
- Looking for areas where more research and data are needed, particularly in areas such as mental/behavioral health, perinatal care and pediatric health, among others
- More alignment around key quality issues across federal programs to get rid of duplicative measurement
- Sharing information about measures used to identify trends in performance and make sure measures are working as they're should
- Assessing areas in which care coordination among various providers can improve health and healthcare quality, along with patient experience
4. MAP's latest recommendations come after an intensive two-month process in which experts look at measures under HHS consideration for use in clinician, hospital, and post-acute care/long-term care settings; take in public comments; and make recommendations about each measure. HHS then considers the recommendations.
5. Additional MAP reports on the themes and measurement issues in the post-acute and long-term care settings and hospital settings will be published Feb. 12. MAP reports on themes for clinician settings and cross-cutting issues will be published March 15.
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