National Quality Forum endorses preventive care and screening measures

The National Quality Forum (NQF) has recently endorsed 19 quality measures related to preventive care and screening. The measures address a range of clinical preventive care concerns, including influenza and pneumococcal immunizations across a range of health care settings and screenings for specific types of cancer, sexually transmitted infections, and osteoporosis. The goal of the measures is to help public health care clinicians effectively evaluate and ultimately improve health at the population level.

ACP is an active member of the NQF and regularly participates in the measure endorsement process. The ACP Performance Measurement Committee (PMC) was invited by the NQF's Population Health Prevention Endorsement Maintenance project to review the performance measures. PMC critically reviewed the performance measures based on a standardized measure review criteria. The ACP PMC provided feedback to the NQF through the member comment and voting period.

The following measures were not approved by ACP due to methodological issues, an unclear measure definition, lack of clinical evidence base or the need for harmonization between multiple measures:

• NQF 0039 Flu shots for ages 50 and over (NCQA),
• NQF 0041 Influenza immunization (AMA-PCPI),
• NQF 1653 Pneumococcal immunization (hospital) (CMS),
• NQF 0033 Chlamydia screening (NCQA),
• NQF 0032 Cervical cancer screening (NCQA) and
• NQF 0046 Osteoporosis screening or therapy for women aged 65 years and older (NCQA).

The following measures were approved by ACP:

• NQF 0431 Influenza vaccination among healthcare personnel (CDC),
• NQF 0522 Influenza immunization- home health (CMS),
• NQF 0226 Influenza immunization in the ESRD population (Kidney Care Quality Alliance),
• NQF 1659 Influenza immunization (hospital) (CMS),
• NQF 0043 Pneumonia vaccination for older adults (NCQA),
• NQF 0617 Pneumococcal vaccination (Active Health Management),
• NQF 0525 Pneumococcal vaccine ever received (home health) (CMS),
• NQF 0034 Colorectal cancer screening (NCQA),
• NQF 0579 Annual cervical cancer screening for high-risk patients (Resolution Health, Inc.),
• NQF 0037 Osteoporosis testing in older women (NCQA),
• NQF 0614 Steroid use- osteoporosis screening (Active Health Management) and
• NQF 0629 Male smokers or family history of AAA – screening for AAA (Active Health Management).