THE NATIONAL QUALITY FORUM: FIRST ANNUAL MEETING

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In a report issued in 1998, the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry proposed creation of a voluntary, private sector entity to develop and implement effective, efficient, and coordinated strategies for ensuring the widespread availability of valid and reliable information on quality for use by all healthcare stakeholders. The National Forum for Health Care Quality Measurement and Reporting (National Quality Forum, or NQF) was established in 1999, with a mission of the NQF is to improve healthcare quality by deploying a strategy to standardize the means by which healthcare quality data are measured and reported, and to ensure that healthcare quality data are widely available. By deliberate design, the NQF gives equal voice to consumers, healthcare purchasers, health plans and providers, and quality improvement and research organizations. Together, NQF members work to promote a common approach to foster systemwide capacity for quality improvement. The purpose of the NQF Annual Meeting is to: 1) foster a sense of common purpose and develop a shared framework for developing, implementing, and reporting consistent measures of the quality of care across consumers, purchasers, and providers of healthcare; 2) disseminate information and share experiences and concerns about the implementation of quality measures and evidence- based "best practices to improve quality; 3) link research to practice by examining technical issues in the development of new ways of measuring the quality of care, with an emphasis on issues that relate to feasibility and the use of measures after development; and 4) identify important areas for future research relating to the development, testing, implementation, and reporting of quality measures. The first NQF Annual Meeting in September 2000 is intended to meet these objectives both generally, as the first step in a long-term effort to foster collaboration and a framework for healthcare quality measurement; and specifically, in support of the NQF's initial activities in the areas of hospital quality measurement and medical errors.