The National Quality Forum is sticking by its initial decision to endorse an all-cause hospital readmissions measure, despite challenges from seven hospital systems, the nonprofit organization announced Friday.
It's board of directors voted to uphold endorsement of the measure codeveloped by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Serves and Yale University, which will establish a single summary risk-adjusted readmission rate for surgery/gynecology, general medicine, cardiorespiratory, cardiovascular and neurology.
In challenging the readmissions measure, the health systems also criticized how the NQF achieves consensus, especially because members endorsed the measure in a split vote, reported HealthcareFinanceNews.
The NQF first endorsed the new measure for all-cause unplanned readmissions back in April, despite provider criticism of using national measures of readmissions as a quality indicator.
The NQF responded, saying it will assemble a task force to examine ways to improve the consensus process.
"We put great faith in our members and multi-stakeholder, expert committees to help us make decisions that are in the best interests of achieving a higher-value, safer healthcare system," NQF President and CEO Janet Corrigan said in the statement. "This current project shows that reaching consensus is difficult, but any process that balances multi-stakeholder interests yields important results."
For more:
- read the NQF statement
- read the HealthcareFinanceNews article