The National Quality Forum (NQF) Board of Directors has approved for endorsement 14 quality measures on palliative and end-of-life care. The measures address a wide range of care concerns, including pain management, psychosocial needs, care transitions, and experiences of care.
"As the number of older adults in this country continues to grow, palliative and end-of-life care services are needed more than ever," said Janet Corrigan, PhD, MBA, president and CEO of NQF. "This set of measures will help promote the type of high-quality care older people and acutely ill patients deserve."
NQF sought measures focused on care concerns such as managing pain, weight loss, and depression. It also sought measures that would directly assess - and improve over time - the experience of patients undergoing palliative and end-of- life care, as well as the experience of their families. In all, 22 measures were evaluated against NQF's endorsement criteria by a panel of providers, measurement experts, and consumer representatives; 14 measures were endorsed. Twelve measures are new.
R. Sean Morrison, MD, director of the National Palliative Care Research Center and co-chair of the Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care Endorsement Maintenance Steering Committee stated: "This measure set will help support such efforts, such as enhanced treatment of pain and other symptoms, improved communication between providers and patients, fewer admissions to emergency departments, and increased patient satisfaction."
NQF is a voluntary consensus standards-setting organization. It operates under a three-part mission to improve the quality of American healthcare by:
- building consensus on national priorities and goals for performance improvement and working in partnership to achieve them
- endorsing national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting on performance
- promoting the attainment of national goals through education and outreach programs.
Palliative care is specialized medical care for those with serious illnesses. It is focused on providing patients with relief from the symptoms, pain, and stress of a serious illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family. It is not just for end of life care and that is an important distinction.
The measures were derived from a number of sources, including the RAND Corp., the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, and Deyta, a provider of healthcare quality measurement tools and benchmarks. You can view NQF endorsed measures here.
As palliative care becomes more understood and more players enter the market, it would be wise to track endorsed quality measures and use them as a guidepost for care. As we say it is the right thing to do but also becomes a marketing advantage when that higher quality standard translates into better patient experiences.
P.S. If there is a palliative care expert that would like to be a guest author for this site, please let me know using the contact form.
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