Dr Helen Burstin Describes NQF's Role in the Core Quality Measures Collaborative

Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, FACP, chief scientific officer of The National Quality Forum, said that quality measurement is at the core of transitioning to value-based payment, and that the initiative can’t truly move forward without putting the work in to identify and define what that value is.

Transcript (slightly modified)

What is the National Quality Forum’s involvement in the Core Quality Measures Collaborative?

NQF’s been engaged in the CMS AHIP measures collaborative from the very beginning, actually, and have played several important roles. I think one of which is to be a technical advisor as the different work groups are focused on a particular content area. We could bring forward all the endorsed measures in that space. We could point to particular measures that maybe they wouldn’t have thought of otherwise but we’ve really been engaged as part of those efforts.

And then lastly, we’ve also been engaged in ensuring that the collaborative had a broader set of stakeholders at the table as it moved beyond the initial plan, the physician groups and now to a broader set of stakeholders.

What is the role of quality measurement in the move toward value-based care?

It is clear that measurement is core towards making that transition to value-based payment. We can’t move forward with doing work based on really identifiying the value, which is combination of cost and outcomes in particular, unless you’ve got those outcomes ready to go. So we really see measurement as being core to that shift to value-based purchasing.

And in fact, if we perform well in outcomes, our hope would be, we would ultimately reduce costs and really get a better value. That being said, there are a fair number of measurement gaps. Gaps in terms of the outcomes where they are, so one of our visions is to try to be out there, finding out where the best possible measures are, harvesting for those, bringing them forward and trying to get them used as part of these national efforts.