The National Quality Forum (“NQF”) has published a draft report (“Report”) recommending various methods to measure the use of telehealth. By way of quick background, NQF is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization that seeks national collaboration to improve health and healthcare quality through measurement. The Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) requested NQF to convene a multi-stakeholder committee to recommend various methods to measure the use of telehealth as a means of providing care. Among other things, the Report analyzes the best way to ensure clinical measures are appropriately applied to telehealth, proposes a measure framework, sets some guidelines for future telehealth measurement, and identifies measurement gaps.
To help develop a telehealth measurement framework, NQF began by conducting a comprehensive scan identifying existing measures and potential measure concepts related to telehealth. As explained in the Report, the “framework is a conceptual model for organizing ideas that provides high-level guidance and direction on priorities for what is important to measure in telehealth and how measurement should take place in order to assess its impact on healthcare delivery and outcomes.” The Report analyzed reports and white papers from organizations such as the American Telemedicine Association, the Health Information Management and Systems Society, and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Continue reading…