NQF Supplement: Toward a Comprehensive Cancer Measure Set -- Episodes of Care

In collaboration with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, NCI has contracted with the National Quality Forum (NQF) to sponsor a meeting of experts to help guide the future development of cancer quality of care measures. This project will build upon prior work at the NQF completed under the Cancer Quality of Care Measures Project, as well as current work underway within the NQF to assess value-based medical care, including "episode efficiency" for chronic conditions.

Given the long-term nature of many oncologic diseases, their discrete treatment phases, the complexity of caregiving with attendant coordination needs, and the vital role of the patient as the center for care management and decision-making, cancer is an excellent paradigm of the need to move toward this episodic assessment of what constitutes optimal care and how this can be achieved in the most efficient manner.

The NQF will commission a white paper outlining the current state of performance measurement in cancer care and the key issues around the development of a comprehensive measurement strategy using a value-based, episode-of-care approach.

The NQF also will organize and convene a one-day workshop to map out an action plan for developing the next generation of cancer quality-of-care measures, including a gap analysis of needed measures and possible application to cancer of the NQF generic framework for evaluating value across episodes of care.

NQF is currently developing a planning committee to assist in defining the scope of the white paper and planning and executing the workshop, including the agenda, topics, and selection of invited speakers and participants. The workshop is planned for the early Summer of 2008.