Health care quality measurement
Subtitle: the National Quality Forum has begun a 4-year contract with HHS : report to Congressional committees
Publisher: U.S. Govt. Accountability Office
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Washington, D.C.]
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] :
Number of pages: 24
Subjects: Procurement; Evaluation; Accounting; Public contracts; Expense accounts; United States. Department of Health and Human Services; United States; National Quality Forum
Other titles: Health care quality measurement :; National Quality Forum has begun a 4-year contract with HHS
Description: The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (MIPPA) directed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to enter into a 4-year contract with an entity to perform five duties related to health care quality measurement and authorized $40 million from the Medicare Trust Funds for the contract. In January 2009, HHS awarded a contract to the National Quality Forum (NQF), under which HHS will reimburse NQF for its costs and pay additional fixed fees. Established in 1999, NQF is a nonprofit member organization that fosters agreement on national standards for measuring and public reporting of health care performance data. This is the first of two reports MIPPA requires GAO to submit on NQF's contract with HHS. In this report, which covers the first contract year-- January 14, 2009, to January 13, 2010-- GAO describes (1) the status of NQF's work on the five duties under MIPPA; (2) the costs and fixed fees NQF has reported; and (3) what NQF and HHS do in order to help ensure that NQF's reported costs are proper.
Notes: Title from PDF title page (GAO, viewed on July 19, 2010).

"July 2010."

"GAO-10-737."

Includes bibliographical references.

Mode of access: Internet from U.S. Government Accountability Office web site. Adobe Acrobat Reader required.
Table of contents: title: Background; title: NQF has begun work for each of the five duties required by MIPPA related to quality measures; title: NQF reported about $6.5 million in costs and fixed fees for the first contract year; title: NQF and HHS rely on reviews of NQF invoices in order to help ensure that NQF's reported costs are proper; title: Concluding observations.