Report: HHS has missed critical quality measure development deadlines
Report: HHS has missed critical quality measure development deadlines
The Department of Health and Human Services is in danger of missing critical deadlines in developing the quality measures used to evaluate the Affordable Care Act's cost-savings initiatives, a government report revealed.
HHS contracts with the National Quality Forum to develop these measures. But according to a Government Accountability Office investigation, NQF has missed deadlines and exceeded contract cost estimates. The agencies have accomplished tasks such as endorsing quality measures for nursing homes, according to the report. However, in more than half of its other projects — such as those tied to the health record incentive program and value-based purchasing initiatives for hospitals — NQF did not meet or did not expect to meet the initial time frames approved by HHS.
The GAO's recommendations for improving HHS compliance include: “(1) use all monitoring tools required under the contract to help address NQF's performance, (2) complete testing of retooled measures, and (3) comprehensively plan for its quality measurement needs.
Click here to read the full report.
