AHA to MAP: Use NAM framework to identify quality improvement priorities

The AHA yesterday urged the Measure Applications Partnership to use the National Academy of Medicine’s “Vital Signs” recommendations as a foundation for identifying quality improvement priorities. “The AHA continues to believe the MAP’s best opportunity to promote broad improvement in health care is to identify a discrete set of actionable quality improvement priorities for the health care field,” wrote Ashley Thompson, AHA senior vice president for public policy analysis and development, commenting on the MAP process. “…Without identified priorities, it is difficult to know whether the measures under consideration address important issues that meaningfully improve patient care. The NAM ‘Vital Signs’ report provides an important uniting framework that will help make all stakeholders be more accountable and engaged in measurement and improvement.” The MAP will deliver its annual recommendations on measures under consideration for Medicare quality measurement and pay-for-performance programs to the Department of Health and Human Services on Feb. 1.