WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Quality Forum (NQF) announced publication of a new set of national consensus standards today. “National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Cardiac Surgery” provides a standardized set of measures and framework for improving the quality of cardiac surgery, which accounts for some 14,000 in-hospital deaths each year. The executive summary of the report, with a list of endorsed performance measures, can be found on the NQF web site, http://www.qualityforum.org/.
The report details quality standards endorsed by the NQF’s more than 250 Member organizations through its formal Consensus Development Process. As such, the measures have special legal standing as voluntary consensus standards.
The set includes 21 hospital-level measures that facilitate efforts to achieve higher levels of patient safety and better outcomes for patients. These measures are intended for public reporting.
“Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and certain cardiac surgical procedures are among the most common surgeries performed in U.S. hospitals,” said Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH, President and CEO of the NQF. “Improving the outcomes of these procedures would have major public health benefit.”
“More than 70 percent of 4,000 cardiac surgeons at 1,000 hospitals already use some of these measures for their internal quality improvement efforts. Creating a standardized, widely endorsed set of voluntary consensus standards extends that reach to all cardiac surgery programs and creates an important tool to both gauge the quality of our work and provide quality of care information to consumers,” said Jeffrey B. Rich, MD, a cardiac surgeon on the NQF Board of Directors and chair of the Virginia Cardiac Surgery Quality Initiative. “I commend the NQF for its important work in this area.”
The 21 measures are, in brief: 1. Participation in a systematic database for cardiac surgery 2. Surgical volume for isolated coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) and CABG+valve surgery 3. Timing of antibiotic administration for cardiac surgery patients 4. Selection of antibiotic administration for cardiac surgery patients 5. Pre-operative beta blockade 6. Use of internal mammary artery 7. Duration of prophylaxis for cardiac surgery patients 8. Prolonged intubation 9. Deep sternal wound infection rate 10. Stroke/cerebrovascular accident 11. Renal insufficiency 12. Surgical re-exploration 13. Anti-platelet medications at discharge 14. Beta blocker at discharge 15. Anti-lipid medications at discharge 16. Risk-adjusted CABG in-patient mortality 17. Risk-adjusted operative mortality for CABG 18. Risk-adjusted operative mortality for aortic valve replacement (AVR) 19. Risk-adjusted operative mortality for mitral valve replacement/repair (MVR) 20. Risk-adjusted operative mortality for AVR+CABG 21. Risk-adjusted operative mortality for MVR+CABG
With the addition of the cardiac surgery measures, the NQF has now endorsed 62 voluntary consensus standards that apply to inpatient acute care hospitals, including measures for heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, obstetrics and newborn care, asthma, and cross-cutting measures. “Increasingly, the healthcare community is recognizing the benefit of performance measurement and public reporting and is supporting the development and endorsement of measures in many areas,” Kizer said.
Support for this project was provided by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Guidant Foundation and Sentara Healthcare.
The NQF is a private, not-for-profit, public benefit corporation created in 1999 to develop and implement a national strategy for healthcare quality measurement and reporting. Established as a unique public-private partnership, the NQF has broad participation from all sectors of the healthcare industry. Visit the NQF on the web at http://www.qualityforum.org/.
National Quality Forum
CONTACT: Philip Dunn of National Quality Forum, +1-202-783-0206,pdunn@qualityforum.org
Web site: http://www.qualityforum.org/