NQF Identifies Efficient Care for 4 Conditions

In an effort to identify providers who deliver high quality care at the lowest cost, the National Quality Forum last week endorsed four new efficiency measures, which in time could end up as part of a health plan's or Medicare's value-based purchasing incentive payment formula.

This brings the total number of efficiency, or "resource use" measures to eight.

The four new measures establish the types of settings and services, measured as standard units of resources, that are appropriate to evaluate the cost of treating four conditions:

1. an episode of asthma
2. chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
3. a hip or knee replacement procedure
4. pneumonia

The measure also includes consideration of which age groups should be included in the cost analysis, and may include a dollar amount, allowable charges, or standard prices for each resource unit typically used to provide that particular type of care. A range of costs for each of these four patient conditions or episodes of care was not provided in this round of resource use measures.