National Quality Forum news from FierceHealthcare
News
SPOTLIGHT: NQF looks for steering committee members
The National Quality Forum is asking for nominations for members of a steering committee that will work on measures requested by the Department of Health and Human Services. The NQF is studying... Read more...
NQF urges greater leadership from hospital pharmacist
This year, when the National Quality Forum updated its manual on safe practices, it made an important change to its medication management chapter. The group is now urging that hospital pharmacists... Read more...
Leapfrog safe practices survey may have captured 'excessive noise'
A survey of hospital performance conducted by the Leapfrog Group in 2006 may suffer from "excessive noise" according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The Safe... Read more...
NQF details cultural-competency practices
The National Quality Forum has endorsed a set of 45 cultural competency practices intended to help providers offer culturally appropriate, patient-centered care. The practices are intended to help... Read more...
Federal bill would link Medicare hospital pay to quality
Now here's a bill that would scare me a bit if I were a hospital administrator--even if it was inevitable (and it is) that such a measure would be written. Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chuck Grassley... Read more...
AHA asks CMS to reconsider 2009 quality measures, payment rates
The American Hospital Association isn't too happy about the quality-reporting requirements in the new proposed outpatient prospective system rule for 2009, and it would like to see CMS make some... Read more...
Trend: Hospitals apologize for mistakes publicly
Typically, hospitals have shied away from the legal exposure and bad publicity that come with apologizing publicly for mistakes. Lately, however--prompted by the industry's increasing push toward... Read more...
IL Blue plan won't pay for errors
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois has become the latest Blue plan to roll out a policy banning payment for medical errors by hospitals. It's become one of several fellow Blue plans to announce... Read more...
MA Blue plan, state ban payment for medical errors
In another major blow for this approach, the state of Massachusetts' Medicaid program and the largest health insurer there each announced that they won't pay for a list of "never events." This week,... Read more...
AHA says CMS hospital quality measures aren't ready
As things stand, hospitals soon will have to report on 72 quality measures (up from 30) if they want to receive full Medicare reimbursement. However, most of the new quality measures proposed by CMS... Read more...
