Call for Measures: Healthcare Disparities and Cultural Competency Consensus Standards

The Healthcare Disparities and Cultural Competency Consensus Standards project seeks to expand on the National Quality Forum's (NQF) previous work where a set of criteria to evaluate disparities-sensitive measures was identified and 35 disparity-sensitive measures for the ambulatory care setting were endorsed (National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Ambulatory Care – Measuring Healthcare Disparities). The current 2011 project began with a commissioned paper, which provided guidance to NQF regarding the selection and evaluation of disparity-sensitive quality measures, outlining the methodological issues with disparities measurement, and identifying cross-cutting measurement gaps in disparities. The commissioned paper and this project are specifically focused on disparities for racial and ethnic minority populations. The Call for Measures is open through January 18, 2012 at 6:00pm ET.

Call for Measures:

In this call, NQF is seeking to identify and endorse performance measures for public reporting and quality improvement in the following areas;

• racial/ethnic healthcare disparities;
• language barriers/improving language access services, which include interpreter services and translation;
• cultural competency, in particular measures related to the NQF-endorsed framework and preferred practices;
• health information technology system capacity to measure and improve healthcare disparities and cultural competency;
• integrating health communication (language, literacy, and culture);
• health-related quality of life;
• care coordination as it relates to improving healthcare disparities and cultural competency;
• patient perceptions/provider biases; and
• use of “navigation” services.

• cross-cutting measures applicable for all populations and care settings;
• system and/or structural measures (e.g., resource allocation, organizational assessments, staff training, interpreter services);
• measures of organizational diversity (e.g., leadership, staff, community advisors, and participation of community engagement);
• measures focused on larger global issues for quality improvement related to disparities or cultural competency (e.g., readmission measure stratified by race, ethnicity, and language); and
• to the extent possible, the inclusion of electronic specifications for the measures submitted to this project.

Read more about the project on the NQF website. 

 

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