FAQ

There are many dimensions of performance related to clinical health care delivery and population health within which measures can be developed. The classification of domains relies on a concept of criterion of quality that differentiates quality measures from related measures.

NQMC contains two major categories of measures: health care delivery measures and population health measures. Health care delivery measures are used to assess the performance of individual clinicians, clinical delivery teams, delivery organizations, or health insurance plans in the provision of care to their patients or enrollees. Population health measures are applied to groups of persons identified by geographic location, organizational affiliation or non-clinical characteristics, in order to assess public health programs, community influences on health, or population-level health characteristics that may not be directly attributable to the care delivery system.

Within each of the two major categories there are three sub-groups: quality measures, related health measures, and efficiency measures. Quality measures are supported by evidence demonstrating that they indicate better or worse care. Related health care measures assess non-quality aspects and are not supported by evidence demonstrating that they indicate better or worse care. Efficiency measures require balancing quality against health care-related cost.

See the Domain Framework and Domain Definitions for a listing of NQMC measure domains.

See the Domain Framework and Domain Definitions for a listing of NQMC measure domains.

See the Glossary for clarifying definitions and examples.

NQMC is a public repository for evidence-based quality measures and measure sets that meet the NQMC inclusion criteria. NQMC does not provide benchmarking data or measure results.

NQMC is a public repository for evidence-based quality measures and measure sets that meet the NQMC inclusion criteria. NQMC does not develop measures or provide specific guidance for developing measures.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) has developed the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) to "facilitate the development of computer systems that behave as if they 'understand' the meaning of the language of biomedicine and health." The UMLS consists of 3 knowledge sources, the Metathesaurus, the Semantic Network and the Specialist Lexicon, as well as computer tools to help developers integrate the information from these sources.

The Metathesaurus is a collection of more than 100 controlled vocabularies, thesauri, and code sets linked together via high-level semantic concepts. NQMC's master's level indexers apply terms from selected UMLS vocabularies to each measure summary and expert commentary to facilitate searching and browsing and to create relationships between similar documents. These vocabularies are:

• Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS)
• International Classification of Diseases - Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM)
• Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
• Physician Data Query (PDQ)
• Standard Product Nomenclature (SPN)
• Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine (Clinical Terms) (SNOMED CT)
• UMLS Metathesaurus (MTH)
• Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System (UMDNS)

See the Inclusion Criteria page.

See the Submit Measures page.

Submitting a measure to NQMC does not mean that you will be relinquishing ownership of your instrument (should it be accepted for inclusion in NQMC). NQMC creates a structured abstract of each measure (measure summary). Complete measure specification information is not included in the measure summaries. In addition, providing direct access to the full-text of your instrument/measure on the NQMC Web site is not required. Alternatively, you may provide us with ordering information for users who wish to acquire the full measure from the developer.

There are no copyright restrictions that prevent users from copying and/or distributing content found on NQMC, provided that all content is appropriately identified. NQMC's content (i.e., measure summaries, expert commentaries) is available for public use, and we encourage the distribution of our content, particularly for educational purposes. NQMC content may not be used for commercial and/or product endorsement purposes.

Although most of NQMC's content is free of restrictions, exceptions occur where individual measure developers have requested otherwise. Refer to the Copyright Statement field at the end of each summary to determine whether such restrictions apply and if users need to contact the measure developer.

NQMC seeks and receives permission from measure developers to include summaries of the original measure specifications that appear at www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov. NQMC does not have the authority to grant copyright clearance for the original measure specifications upon which the summaries are based. If you are interested in using/distributing the original measure specifications, you must contact the measure developer.

Measure developers submit measure specifications to NQMC in a variety of forms including the following:

• Annual Reports
• CD-ROMs/Databases
• Clinical Practice Guidelines/Clinical Practice Guideline Implementation Toolkits
• Patient Surveys/Questionnaires
• Published Journal Articles
• Technical Specifications Manuals/Technical Manuals
• User Manuals
• Various Information Accessible via Measure Developing Organizations' Web Sites
  • PDF/WORD Documents
  • Web-based Measure Kits

This documentation is reviewed against the Inclusion Criteria and subsequently used to develop summaries of measures that meet these criteria.

See the New This Week page.

You can register for the NQMC update e-mail service to receive notices of weekly additions and updates posted to the Web site. Go to the Subscribe to Weekly E-mail page to register for this service.

Users can go to the Measures in Progress browse to see a list of measures in the work queue. Measures on this page include new and updated content that meet Inclusion Criteria and have the necessary copyright permissions.

NQMC summaries reflect the most recent version of a measure. NQMC does not retain summaries of earlier versions of measures that have been updated or withdrawn by the developer. Contact the measure developer directly for information regarding earlier versions of a particular measure.

See the Measure Archive for more information. This feature provides a complete list of summaries that have been withdrawn from the NQMC Web site. Information regarding a current measure summary, where available, is provided. The listings are organized alphabetically by measure developer.

You can type your search term in the search box accessible in the masthead of all NQMC Web pages to quickly search the database. You can also browse the NQMC database by Topic (Disease/Condition, Treatment/Intervention, Health Services Administration), Domain, or Organization.

The About Search page contains useful tips on how to search the NQMC database for measures of interest. You can also use Advanced Search to perform refined searches of the NQMC database. This feature allows you to filter your search by one or more measure attributes (e.g., Care Setting, Professionals Responsible for Health Care, Current Use, Data Source).

No. The main search engine searches the contents of the measure summary as well as its metadata (i.e., UMLS concepts). In Advanced Search, NQMC searches the specific field(s) in the database corresponding to the criteria you select. For more information on searching measures, see About Search.

No. NQMC searches do not recognize the difference between uppercase and lowercase letters. For more information on searching, see About Search.

Your search may not yield content matching the criteria you specified. This can happen for several reasons:

• You may have misspelled a word (see suggested terms provided).
• Your search may be too specific. If you are using the search box, try using more general terms. If you are using the Advanced Search, select fewer options.
• NQMC may not yet have the measure you are seeking. Content is constantly changing, with new measures added frequently. Bookmark this site and make sure to check back often. To be notified by e-mail on a weekly basis when new and updated content is added to the site, see the Subscribe to Weekly E-mail page.

For more information on searching measures, see About Search.

NQMC provides a Measure Initiatives browse to find measures that are associated with a specific measurement initiative. A brief description of each measure initiative is provided, as well as access to measures represented in NQMC that are included in the initiative.

See the Help page for a current list of compatible browsers.

NQMC welcomes links from appropriate Web sites to www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov. For more information, see the For Web Developers page.

Each measure summary provides a printable view via the Print link and several download types: PDF (download the free Adobe Reader ), Word (compatible with Word 1997 and higher), HTML, and XML. A citation for individual measure summaries can also be downloaded into EndNote by clicking on the Citation Manager link.

NQMC has developed several tools for system developers interested in using the content on the Web site. See the For Web Developers page.

Users can subscribe, unsubscribe, or modify their subscription to the NQMC weekly e-mail service using the subscription management utility linked from the Subscribe to Weekly E-mail page.

The Computerized Needs-Oriented Quality Measurement Evaluation System (CONQUEST) is no longer viewed as current guidance for quality improvement. However, NQMC builds on AHRQ's previous initiatives in quality measurement, including CONQUEST, the Expansion of Quality of Care Measures (Q-SPAN) project, the Quality Measurement Network (QMNet) project, and the Performance Measures Inventory (PMI).

AHRQ is now redirecting users to NQMC (www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov) to provide practitioners, health care providers, health plans, integrated delivery systems, purchasers, and others an accessible mechanism for obtaining detailed information on evidence-based health care quality measures and to further dissemination, implementation, and use of these measures in order to inform health care decisions. NQMC provides the latest information on selecting and comparing measures to assist users in assessing clinical performance to inform health care decisions.

For measures for which NQMC has received the necessary permissions from the measure developer, links are provided from the NQMC summary to the original measure documentation at the developer's Web site. Users can find this link by referring to the "Related Content" tab at the top of the each summary or by going to the Measure Availability field that appears near the end of each summary. NQMC is unable to fulfill orders for printed copies of the original measure documentation.

To learn more about the quality measurement field and how best to use NQMC, see the Tutorial on Quality Measures. Here you will find information about desirable attributes of a quality measure, selecting quality measures, using quality measures, validity of clinical quality measures and the variety of measures in NQMC.

See the Contact Us page.

The suggested citation format for a Measure Summary is:

National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC). Measure summary: [insert title of summary]. In: National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available: http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov.

Example: National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC). Measure summary: Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair: mortality rate. In: National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited 2008 Mar 19]. Available: http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov.

If you are citing the original measure upon which the summaries are based, please refer to the Source field included in each measure summary.

The suggested citation format for an Expert Commentary is:

Author [insert Commentary author]. Commentary title. In: National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available: http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov.

Example: Wachter RM. Is the Measurement Mandate Diverting the Patient Safety Revolution? In: National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited 2010 Feb 10]. Available: http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov.