"All stakeholders, including employers, physicians and the government, are looking for endorsed standards like these perioperative performance measures that are feasible, reliable, and valid," said Walker. "NQF is recognized as the principal body in the United States for the endorsement of healthcare performance and quality measures. The newly endorsed perioperative performance measures on a clinical level will be the driving force for improvement in both processes and health outcomes for patients."
The standards measure the quality, efficiency, and care coordination of surgical care, including pre-operative, intra-operative and post-operative care within the surgical facility, as well as coordination with appropriate external providers. This includes perioperative temperature management for surgery patients and post-operative urinary catheter removal. There was a significant effort to ensure the facility-level standards were harmonized with the clinician-level perioperative standards.
Measures were developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the American Medical Association's Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, LifeScan, the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the Society for Vascular Surgery, and the Vascular Study Group of Northern New England.
Nonphysician Professionals
Providing high-level health care requires a multidisciplinary approach. Yet consensus standards endorsed to date have mainly targeted traditional physician practices. Fifteen new NQF-endorsed voluntary consensus standards measure care at a clinician level for non-physician professionals, including podiatrists, clinical social workers, clinical psychologists, dieticians/nutritionists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists.
Anne Deutsch, a clinical res
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