Quality Initiatives

With rapid growth in hospice and palliative care, we aim to provide resources and tools to assist the health care team to address quality and patient safety in hospice and palliative care settings.

Resources are available to guide you through your quality efforts and educational needs regardless of your experience in quality improvement.

• Measuring What Matters - read the top 10 measures that matter
• Palliative Care Measures Project - learn about the two new patient reported experience measures for outpatient palliative care, and MACRA
• The Palliative Care Quality Collaborative (PCQC) - read about the field's new quality registry
• Quality Improvement Education - see why QI projects are important
• Study Materials - view the AAHPM store for quality improvement products

AAHPM Quality News

Read the latest updates and information from AAHPM's quality initiatives.

Two New Patient-Reported Experience Measures Now Available

September 29, 2021

AAHPM completed a three-year measure development project to create two new patient reported experience measures for outpatient palliative care in partnership with the National Coalition For Hospice and Palliative Care and RAND Corporation. The new measures assess the quality of care provided by asking how much patients felt heard and understood, and if patients got the help they wanted for their pain. The next phase of this project will include work on resources to support implementation of the measures. A unique element of this project was a consistent and intentional commitment to include patients and caregivers in the measure development process. This project was funded through a cooperative agreement between the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and AAHPM. More information can be found on the project webpage.

Learn more about the history of the project on the Palliative Care Measures Project page.

Article on Palliative Care Denominator Results

September 3, 2021

An article in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management (JPSM), results are shared regarding whether a commercial claims database can be used to identify patients with serious illness and provide a useful denominator for palliative care quality measures. With a grant from AARP, AAHPM; AMGA; OptumLabs; and researchers Amy Kelly, MD MSHS, Christine Ritchie, MD MSPH, and Laura Hanson, MD MPH, aimed to operationalize a conceptual definition of serious illness to identify those with serious medical conditions (SMC) among commercial insurance and MA enrollees, and to compare the populations identified through electronic health record (EHR) or claims data sources. Read More.

Attend a Webinar to Learn about a Palliative Care QCDR

March 29, 2019

Did you know that palliative care has a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) through ABFM called PRIME Registry? You can report measures to CMS's Quality Payment Program, specifically MIPS, when you join. Learn more about the PRIME Registry and view a demo by attending one of many webinar offerings.

This QCDR is a Palliative Care Quality Collaborative initiative, funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. For more information about these items, please send an email to Katherine Ast at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) doesn’t exclude, or otherwise discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, sex, or age in admission to, participation in, or receipt of the services under our quality measures development project funded by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS).

AAHPM is committed to making its electronic and information technologies about our CMS funded quality measure development project accessible to people with disabilities. If you can’t access content or features on this website due to a disability, contact  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 847.375.4712. To help us better serve you, upload the material in question and/or include the URL and let us know the specific problems you face. Please include your name, phone number, type of information you need (if known) and your mailing address. We may contact you for additional information.

Hospice and Palliative Care Quality Resources

View resources below from other organizations to benefit your quality initiatives.

AAHPM Blogs

• Measure Development: Developing the Serious Illness Denominator
• The National Quality Forum (NQF) Palliative and End-of-Life Care Project

External Organization Materials

• Clinical Practice Guidelines to Quality Palliative Care, 4th Edition, 2018 - available for download from the National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care
• Measurement Tools - hospital-based QI resources from the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC)
• A National Framework and Preferred Practices for Palliative and Hospice Care Quality - resource from the National Quality Forum (NQF), 2006
• American Society of Clinical Oncology Clinical Practice Guideline Update - updates to the 2012 provisional clinical opinion on the integration of palliative care into standard oncology care for all patients diagnosed with cancer
• Defining High-Quality Palliative Care in Oncology Practice: An American Society of Clinical Oncology/American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Guidance Statement - a resource to direct practice and research

General Physician Quality Resources

• Quality Primer from the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS) - overview of quality measurement from a physician's point of view
• Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) - an independent not-for-profit organization that is a leading innovator in health and healthcare improvement worldwide
• American College of Medical Quality (ACMQ) - a group of health care professionals passionate about medical quality issues and committed to improving the health care system
• Three Faces of Quality - American Association of Physician Leadership offers introductory courses that provide CME

Person-Centered Care

• NQP™ Shared Decision Making Action Brief - resource from the National Quality Forum to help clinicians and patients work in partnership to make informed choices between reasonable medical options, discussing risks, benefits, and care alternatives as well as potential burdens, impact on quality of life, and cost.