The National Quality Forum (NQF) is seeking nominations for a new standing committee to review and recommend for NQF endorsement healthcare quality performance measures related to health and well-being at the population health level.
Social, environmental and behavioral factors can have significant negative impact on health outcomes and economic stability, and these along with other upstream determinants contribute to 60 percent of deaths in the United States; yet only 3 percent of national health expenditure is spent on prevention, while 97 percent is spent on health care services. Population health includes a focus on health and well-being, along with disease and illness, prevention and health promotion, and disparities in outcomes and improvement activities within a group and/or between groups. Developing strategies to strengthen the measurement and analysis of health and well-being given its multi-dimensional focus can be best accomplished using a collaborative approach that includes public health, healthcare delivery systems, and other key sectors whose policies, practices, and procedures influence health. Using the right measures can determine how successful initiatives are in reducing this mortality and excess morbidity and help focus future work to improve population health in appropriate areas.
An expert advisory committee will evaluate measures that address population health and seek to identify and endorse new measures that can be used to assess health and well-being across all levels of analysis, including healthcare providers and communities.
NQF is particularly interested in:
- measures that assess health-related behaviors (e.g. smoking, diet) and practices to promote healthy living;
- community-level indicators of health and disease (e.g. disease incidence and prevalence) and community interventions (e.g. mass screening);
- primary prevention and screening (e.g. influenza immunization);
- modifiable social, economic, environmental determinants of health with demonstrable relationship to population health outcomes;
- measures of intermediate clinical outcomes or longer term health outcomes, including complications;
- composite measures;
- measures applicable to more than one setting;
- measures that capture broad populations, including children and adolescents where applicable;
- measures that are harmonized with similar measures; and,
- measures that are sensitive to vulnerable populations, including racial/ethnic minorities; and Medicaid populations.
Committee members are selected to ensure representation from a variety of stakeholders, including consumers, purchasers, providers, professionals, plans, suppliers, community and public health, and healthcare quality experts. Nominees should possess relevant knowledge and/or proficiency in process and outcome quality measurement and/or clinical expertise in the evaluation, treatment, diagnostic studies, imaging, interventions, or procedures associated with health and well-being, across multiple care settings. NQF is seeking nominees with a variety of clinical experience, including physicians, nurses, therapists, case managers, unit managers, and executives. We also are seeking expertise in community-based organizations, public health agencies, school health programs, disparities and care of vulnerable populations.
Nominations for the Committee are due on December 20, 2013, and instructions on how to submit a nomination are available on the NQF website.
Ignatius Bau 