This notice acknowledges the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (the Secretary) receipt and review of the National Quality Forum 2020 Annual Activities Report to Congress and the Secretary as mandated by the Social Security Act (the Act). The Secretary has reviewed and determined that the National Quality Forum's 2020 Annual Report satisfied all requirements mandated in statute, and is publishing the report in the Federal Register together with the Secretary's comments on the report.
FR notice:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/08/27/2021-18485/secretarial-review-and-publication-of-the-2020-annual-report-to-congress-and-the-secretary-submitted
The National Quality Forum is the consensus-based entity (CBE) referred to in the text below.
National Quality Forum:
https://www.qualityforum.org/Home.aspx
Priority Setting Process: Formulation of a National Strategy and Priorities for Health Care Performance Measurement. The CBE must synthesize evidence and convene key stakeholders to make recommendations on an integrated national strategy and priorities for health care performance measurement in all applicable settings. In doing so, the CBE must give priority to measures that: (1) Address the health care provided to patients with prevalent, high-cost chronic diseases; (2) have the greatest potential for improving quality, efficiency, and patient-centered health care; and (3) may be implemented rapidly due to existing evidence, standards of care, or other reasons. In addition, the CBE must take into account measures that: (1) May assist consumers and patients in making informed health care decisions; (2) address health disparities across groups and areas; and (3) address the continuum of care furnished by multiple providers or practitioners across multiple settings.
Endorsement of Measures: The CBE must provide for the endorsement of standardized health care performance measures. This process must consider whether measures are evidence-based, Start Printed Page 48155reliable, valid, verifiable, relevant to enhanced health outcomes, actionable at the caregiver level, feasible to collect and report, responsive to variations in patient characteristics such as health status, language capabilities, race or ethnicity, and income level and are consistent across types of health care providers, including hospitals and physicians.
Maintenance of CBE Endorsed Measures: The CBE is required to establish and implement a process to ensure that endorsed measures are updated (or retired if obsolete) as new evidence is developed.
Convening Multi-Stakeholder Groups. The CBE must convene multi-stakeholder groups to provide input on: (1) The selection of certain categories of quality and efficiency measures, from among such measures that have been endorsed by the entity and from among such measures that have not been considered for endorsement by such entity but are used or proposed to be used by the Secretary for the collection or reporting of quality and efficiency measures; and (2) national priorities for improvement in population health and in the delivery of health care services for consideration under the national strategy. The CBE provides input on measures for use in certain specific Medicare programs, for use in programs that report performance information to the public, and for use in health care programs that are not included under the Act. The multi-stakeholder groups provide input on quality and efficiency measures for various federal health care quality reporting and quality improvement programs including those that address certain Medicare services provided through hospices, ambulatory surgical centers, hospital inpatient and outpatient facilities, physician offices, cancer hospitals, end stage renal disease (ESRD) facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, long-term care hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, and home health care programs.
Transmission of Multi-Stakeholder Input. Not later than February 1 of each year, the CBE must transmit to the Secretary the input of multi-stakeholder groups.
Annual Report to Congress and the Secretary. Not later than March 1 of each year, the CBE is required to submit to the Congress and the Secretary an annual report. The report is to describe:
The implementation of quality and efficiency measurement initiatives and the coordination of such initiatives with quality and efficiency initiatives implemented by other payers;
Recommendations on an integrated national strategy and priorities for health care performance measurement;
Performance of the CBE's duties required under its contract with the Secretary;
Gaps in endorsed quality and efficiency measures, including measures that are within priority areas identified by the Secretary under the national strategy established under section 399HH of the Public Health Service Act (National Quality Strategy), and where quality and efficiency measures are unavailable or inadequate to identify or address such gaps;
Areas in which evidence is insufficient to support endorsement of quality and efficiency measures in priority areas identified by the Secretary under the National Quality Strategy, and where targeted research may address such gaps; and
The convening of multi-stakeholder groups to provide input on: (1) The selection of quality and efficiency measures from among such measures that have been endorsed by the CBE and such measures that have not been considered for endorsement by the CBE but are used or proposed to be used by the Secretary for the collection or reporting of quality and efficiency measures; and (2) national priorities for improvement in population health and the delivery of health care services for consideration under the National Quality Strategy.
Section 50206(c)(1) of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (Pub. L. 115-123) amended section 1890(b)(5)(A) of the Act to require the CBE's annual report to the Congress include the following: (1) An itemization of financial information for the previous fiscal year ending September 30th, including annual revenues of the entity, annual expenses of the entity, and a breakdown of the amount awarded per contracted task order and the specific projects funded in each task order assigned to the entity; and (2) any updates or modifications to internal policies and procedures of the entity as they relate to the duties of the CBE including specifically identifying any modifications to the disclosure of interests and conflicts of interests for committees, work groups, task forces, and advisory panels of the entity, and information on external stakeholder participation in the duties of the entity.
The statutory requirements for the CBE to annually report to the Congress and the Secretary also specify that the Secretary must review and publish the CBE's annual report in the Federal Register, together with any comments of the Secretary on the report, not later than 6 months after it has been received.
This Federal Register notice complies with the statutory requirement for Secretarial review and publication of the CBE's annual report. NQF submitted a report on its 2020 activities to the Congress and the Secretary on March 1, 2020. The Secretary's Comments on this report are presented in section II. of this notice, and the National Quality Forum 2020 Activities Report to the Congress and the Secretary is provided, as submitted to HHS, in the addendum to this Federal Register notice in section III.
