New report recommends national quality strategy for healthcare

The National Priorities Partnership (NPP) has submitted a report to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who earlier asked for input on specific goals and measures for each of six National Quality Strategy (NQS) priorities related to the delivery of healthcare.

In the report, NPP defined three categories of strategic opportunities that are critical for making progress, according to a release from the National Quality Forum (NQF). The categories are:

• There must be a national strategy for data collection, measurement, and reporting that supports performance measurement and improvement efforts of public and private sector stakeholders at the national and community level.
• There must be an organizational infrastructure at the community level that assumes responsibility for improvement efforts, often requiring collaboration among healthcare stakeholders and between healthcare and other sectors; all communities will need resources to benchmark and compare performance, and mechanisms to identify, share, and evaluate progress.
• There must be ongoing payment and delivery system reform—emphasizing primary care—that rewards value over volume, promotes patient-centered outcomes, efficiency, and appropriate care, and seeks to improve quality while reducing or eliminating waste from the system.

NPP represents 48 public- and private-sector stakeholder groups in multiple spheres of activity within healthcare. It was convened by NQF to offer guidance on building consensus on national priorities and goals for performance improvement.

Click here to download the full report.