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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.

AAHPM Quality News

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

New Quality Measures Report Published

March 23, 2020

A new Information Gathering Report has been published by the RAND Health Care team, as part of the Palliative Care Measures Project. AAHPM is partnering with the National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care and RAND to create two patient reported experience measures. The measures will assess the extent to which adult patients receiving outpatient clinic-based palliative care received the help they wanted for pain, and felt heard and understood by their palliative care provider and team. The project is a cooperative agreement (#1V1CMS331639-01-00) between the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and AAHPM as part of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). The project began September 14, 2018 and will conclude September 13, 2021.

Webinar Recording: New Palliative Care Quality Measures Project

September 2, 2019

Learn about the MACRA Palliative Care Measures Project in this recorded webinar. Get a first look at upcoming measures and gain insight into what data will be collected and what systems need to be in place to implement future quality measures. 


View the webinar recording and download the handout.

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. .

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.

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

External Organization Materials

General Physician Quality Resources

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.