ALEXANDRIA, Va.  – A national roundtable of 17 health care quality measurement experts, patient advocates, caregivers, and patients begins work today to create a rubric for assessing the patient centeredness of quality measure development and implementation. The rubric will provide guidance on best practices for ensuring patient perspectives are effectively represented in health care quality measurement, an important factor in assessing the real-world value of care.

The roundtable was appointed and convened by the Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA), the National Quality Forum (NQF), and the National Health Council (NHC).

“The roundtable we have convened includes the nation’s top measure developers, leading patient advocacy organizations, and individual patients and caregivers, who bring unique, real-world experience to the process,” said Matthew Pickering, PQA’s senior director of research and quality strategies. “We are confident their collaborative work will generate useful guidance for evaluating what good and effective patient engagement looks like across the quality measurement lifecycle.”

“The patient perspective is critical in developing quality measures that capture and measure what truly maters to patients and is most impactful,” said Eleanor Perfetto, senior vice president, Strategic Initiatives at the NHC. “This rubric will help facilitate the development of effective, patient-centric quality measures.”

“From its inception, NQF has sought to make consumers and patients equal partners in quality improvement,” said Kathleen Giblin, senior vice-president, quality innovation of NQF. “We’re excited to support efforts that advance the development and promotion of person-centered goals essential to improving health outcomes.”

The roundtable members are:

• Marie Abraham, MA, vice president, programming and publications, Institute for Patient and Family Centered Care
• Rebekah Angove, PhD, vice president, patient experience & program evaluation, Patient Advocate Foundation
• Mary Barton, MD, MPP, vice president, performance measurement, NCQA
• Cynthia Chauhan, patient
• Elizabeth Cinqueonce, chief operating officer, Minnesota Community Measurement
• Morgan Daven, senior director, health systems, Alzheimer’s Association
• Hala H. Durrah, MTA, family caregiver
• Lori Frank, PhD, senior behavioral scientist, behavioral & policy sciences, RAND Corporation
• Lindsey Galli, director of education, Patient Family Centered Care Partners
• Emma Kopleff, MPH, Project Officer, Public and Patient Engagement, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
• Robert Morgan, MPA, measures lead, hospital IQR program and hospital VBP program, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
• Dierdre Mylod, PhD, senior vice president, research & analytics & executive director, Institute for Innovation, Press Ganey
• N. Lee Rucker, MSPH, principal and founder, Enhance Value
• Tonya Saffer, MPH, vice president, health policy, National Kidney Foundation
• Ellen Schultz, MS, senior researcher, healthservices and systems, American Institutes for Research
• Adam Thompson, regional partner director, AIDS education and training center, Jefferson Health New Jersey – Infectious Diseases
• Samantha Tierney, MPH, senior director, measurement science, PCPI Foundation

The roundtable is expected to complete the rubric this year. PQA, NQF, and NHC will engage the patient community and quality measure developers to disseminate and encourage the use of the rubric. Findings from its use will inform emerging best practices of patient engagement in quality measurement and will help refine the rubric.

This initiative is supported by an independent educational grant from Merck & Co., Inc.