Online Program

295751
National Framework for Public Health Quality: Incorporating the Public Health Aims into the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ's) National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC)


Monday, November 4, 2013 : 1:30 p.m. - 1:50 p.m.

R. Heather Palmer, M.B., B.Ch., S.M., Health Policy & Management, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
In 2008 the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH) – recognizing the importance of national leadership in spurring public health quality improvement initiatives – led a consensus building process with various public health system partners to develop nine aims “that characterize public health quality improvement.” OASH anticipated that identifying and defining the aims would encourage stakeholders across the health care system and across the country to employ effective and consistent public health practices. Between 2007 and 2010, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) supported its National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) team's exploration into and subsequent transition to an expanded measure domain framework. The expanded measure domain framework was designed to accommodate a growing body of measures used to assess health and health care quality. Appreciating the value of the public health quality aims, the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) asked the National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) team, led by ECRI Institute, to evaluate options for representing the public health quality aims in NQMC and thus test the true utility of the NQMC expanded measure domain framework.

In this panel presentation, Dr. Palmer will provide an overview of this pilot project. She will describe the: • NQMC Template of Measure Attributes and expanded domain framework • initial exploration of possible approaches to effectively tag public health measures in NQMC with the appropriate public health aims • collaborative work undertaken to clarify the aims and provide supporting detail for each • pilot testing of several public health measures not yet submitted to, or represented in, NQMC against the public health aims • development of a draft map from the controlled vocabulary values in the existing NQMC template to the public health aims • use of a hybrid approach in which the draft map is used as guidance, in combination with an analytical approach based on the measure specifications and public health quality aims definitions for assigning the quality aims to public health measures represented in NQMC

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Other professions or practice related to public health
Program planning
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Explain what types of measures may be used as quality measures Discuss how different types of stakeholders could use the quality measures described in the report List at least three selection criteria for measures of quality for population health

Keyword(s): Quality, Quality Improvement

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I served as a member of the research team that developed the methodology to exapnd the measures domain framework.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.