Core measures are being jointly developed
Task Force has active role in the process now’
Gary Carter, president and CEO of the Princeton-based New Jersey Hospital Association (NJHA), chairs a nationwide Core Measurement Implementation Task Force put in place by Joint Commission president Dennis O’Leary in response to a letter O’Leary received in January from 17 state hospital associations expressing concerns about the ORYX initiative and its feasibility. (See the June issue of Hospital Peer Review, p. 96, for an article outlining the task force’s goals.) The group consists of representative associations from around the country and has input into decisions about how the core measures will be rolled out.
"We have an active role in the process now," says Ceil Stern, director of accreditation and licensure for the NJHA. The group met in late March for the first time and has met periodically after that, both in person and by phone.
"The implementation task force is making a great deal of progress," says Judy Finlan, director of clinical consulting services at NJHA. "That’s because there’s now a dialogue going on."
"People on the front lines, those who are actually implementing the process, now have input into making it successful," says Stern. There was a forum of state hospital associations in May that came on the heels of a notice from the Joint Commission asking for comments on content areas it was proposing for core measures. "We were asked to rank them, so we and other hospital associations sent out surveys to our members," says Stern.
As a result of those surveys and the discussions at the forum, the Joint Commission decided on five areas important enough to be included as core measures:
• acute myocardial infarction;
• congestive heart failure;
• pneumonia;
• surgical procedures and complications;
• pregnancy and related conditions.
"Now that those five areas have been identified," she continues, "the Joint Commission will convene clinical panels in each area and determine specific measures." The New Jersey association has nominated a member from that state to serve on one of those panels.
"We in the field bear the burden of implementing performance measures, so we need to be included when the Joint Commission develops policies that are going to impact us," she says. "I do think the Joint Commission has responded appropriately to our letter in terms of convening the task force."
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