Logo

Log In Sign Up |  An official publication of: American College of Emergency Physicians
Navigation
  • Home
  • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • Clinical
    • Airway Managment
    • Case Reports
    • Critical Care
    • Guidelines
    • Imaging & Ultrasound
    • Pain & Palliative Care
    • Pediatrics
    • Resuscitation
    • Trauma & Injury
  • Resource Centers
    • mTBI Resource Center
  • Career
    • Practice Management
      • Benchmarking
      • Reimbursement & Coding
      • Care Team
      • Legal
      • Operations
      • Quality & Safety
    • Awards
    • Certification
    • Compensation
    • Early Career
    • Education
    • Leadership
    • Profiles
    • Retirement
    • Work-Life Balance
  • Columns
    • ACEP4U
    • Airway
    • Benchmarking
    • Brief19
    • By the Numbers
    • Coding Wizard
    • EM Cases
    • End of the Rainbow
    • Equity Equation
    • FACEPs in the Crowd
    • Forensic Facts
    • From the College
    • Images in EM
    • Kids Korner
    • Medicolegal Mind
    • Opinion
      • Break Room
      • New Spin
      • Pro-Con
    • Pearls From EM Literature
    • Policy Rx
    • Practice Changers
    • Problem Solvers
    • Residency Spotlight
    • Resident Voice
    • Skeptics’ Guide to Emergency Medicine
    • Sound Advice
    • Special OPs
    • Toxicology Q&A
    • WorldTravelERs
  • Resources
    • ACEP.org
    • ACEP Knowledge Quiz
    • Issue Archives
    • CME Now
    • Annual Scientific Assembly
      • ACEP14
      • ACEP15
      • ACEP16
      • ACEP17
      • ACEP18
      • ACEP19
    • Annals of Emergency Medicine
    • JACEP Open
    • Emergency Medicine Foundation
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Medical Editor in Chief
    • Editorial Advisory Board
    • Awards
    • Authors
    • Article Submission
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Privacy Policy
    • Copyright Information

Quality Performance Measures Track ED

By ACEP Now | on June 1, 2009 | 0 Comment
From the College
  • Tweet
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Print-Friendly Version

The National Quality Forum (NQF) has issued a new set of emergency department performance measures. And not surprising at a time when attention is focused on ED crowding and wait times, 5 of the 10 new measures address throughput, while the remainder look at clinical management protocols.

You Might Also Like
  • NQF Measures Join Growing List Of Quality Improvement Efforts
  • The State of Emergency Medicine Quality Measures
  • Emergency Medicine Quality Measures
Explore This Issue
ACEP News: Vol 28 – No 06 – June 2009

These measures follow a previous set issued in November 2007 (phase 1) that focused on ED communications and acute myocardial infarction care during ED transfers. Together, they are part of an NQF project to increase public accountability and quality improvement for emergency care. A third set, aimed at prehospital care and care coordination, is envisioned.

As a voluntary consensus standards-setting organization, NQF brought together a steering committee for the project comprising major specialty groups and organizations involved in emergency medicine.

The endorsed measures were selected out of a pool of recommendations submitted by public and private entities.

“All these organizations are interested in process improvement and quality improvement,” said Dr. John Moorhead, an ACEP past president who chaired the NQF steering committee. A professor of emergency medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, he is a director on the American Board of Emergency Medicine.

“Our hope is that as measures like these get identified, they’re used across the board­—not some measures for one group and some for another,” Dr. Moorhead said.

“We want this to be relevant and done in a way that’s consistent across all the organizations,” he added—whereas if the same groups worked independently to develop performance measures, there would be the risk of redundancy and multiple reporting channels, with attendant burdens on EDs.

‘we want this to be relevant and done in a way that’s consistent across all the organizations.’

Crowding and Wait Times in EDs

Dr. Dennis Beck, chairman of ACEP’s Quality and Performance Committee, said the NQF’s approach is well-considered and points the specialty in a good direction.

“Crowding and boarding problems are among the many challenges facing ACEP and our patients,” he said. “These proposed measures shine a light on a critical problem.”

NQF statistics show that from 1994-2004, ED visits increased by 18%—to 120 million visits a year—while the number of EDs decreased by more than 12%.

In addition to coping with their own capacity problems, EDs “are sometimes forced to shoulder the burden for other hospital departments,” Dr. Beck said.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 | Single Page

Topics: Operations

Related

  • Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego’s Unique ED Culture Breeds Innovation

    July 3, 2025 - 0 Comment
  • Opinion: Demand Up, Beds Down—The Emergency Dept. Crowding Crisis

    June 17, 2025 - 0 Comment
  • A Behavioral Health Intake-Process Model

    May 2, 2023 - 0 Comment

Current Issue

ACEP Now: July 2025

Download PDF

Read More

About the Author

ACEP Now

View this author's posts »

No Responses to “Quality Performance Measures Track ED”

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*
*

Wiley
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Advertise
  • Cookie Preferences
Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies. ISSN 2333-2603