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
• Quality Reporting - learn about MACRA, MIPS, APMs
• Quality Strategies and Registries Project - read about current and new quality registries
• 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.

Technical Expert Clinical User Patient Panel and Measure Specification Panel Selected for Palliative Care Measures Project

February 18, 2019

To support the Palliative Care Measures Project, a new Technical Expert Clinical User Patient Panel (TECUPP) and Measure Specification Panel has been named and will be chaired by Sydney Dy, MD MS FAAHPM and Mary Ersek, PhD RN FPCN. The panels will contribute direction and thoughtful input on the development of the measures for patients with serious illness.

The panel members represent a broad array of stakeholders including measure development experts, palliative care clinicians, specialty society representatives, patients and patient advocates, healthcare industry representatives, and others. Read the full release.

AAHPM Awarded $5.5 Million Grant from CMS

January 9, 2019

AAHPM, in partnership with the National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care and the RAND Corporation, was awarded a $5.5 million grant from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to develop patient-reported quality measures for community-based palliative care.

The measures are intended for use in CMS's Quality Payment Program (QPP), including the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Alternative Payment Models (APMs). Read the CMS MACRA funding opportunity FAQ.

This measure development project complements other AAHPM-convened quality and payment initiatives, including: the unification of specialty palliative care quality registries under a new quality collaborative, testing of a methodology to identify the population with serious illness for inclusion in quality measures, and a proposal for an alternative payment model to support community based palliative care.

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
• Ten Components of Quality in Hospice Care - a comprehensive framework from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) for organizing, assessing, and monitoring a hospice's clinical and nonclinical operations
• 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
• National Institute for Quality Improvement and Education (NIQIE) - supports the integration of quality improvement and continuing education for health professionals with the ultimate goal of improving patient care
• 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.