Collaboration key in winning NQF endorsement for medication management measure
May 1, 2017
Published by Nephrology News & Issues
by Dr. Allen R. Nissenson and Dr. Edward R. Jones
Since its inception, the Kidney Care Quality Alliance (KCQA) has brought together key stakeholders from across the kidney care community to develop meaningful, evidence-based measures that will lead to positive patient outcomes, drive better provider performance, and lower health care costs.
By focusing on developing quality measures that are both consen- sus-based and grounded in clinical evidence, KCQA has successfully convened some of the best minds in kidney care––including patient and physician groups, providers, researchers, consumer groups, and representatives from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services––to debate and develop these important measures in a consensus-driven process. It is a robust partnership with a wealth of experience––and one that we feel serves a crucial function in the national effort to improve kidney care delivery and outcomes.
Having spent most of our profes- sional careers as practicing nephrologists and researchers in our field, we recognize that the challenges of providing care to patients with kidney disease and kidney failure are com- plex and numerous. But through our participation in KCQA we are pleased to be a fundamental part of address- ing, head-on, some of the most urgent of these.
In March 2017, the National Quality Forum (NQF) finalized its endorsement of the KCQA’s new qual- ity measure, called the Medication Reconciliation for Patients Receiving Care at Dialysis Facilities. As the first medication management metric developed and tested specifically for use in dialysis facilities, it is a ground- breaking and timely measure that aims to tackle the serious problem of adverse drug events resulting from inadequate medication management for individuals with ESRD. It calls on dialysis care providers to complete a thorough, monthly medication rec- onciliation process for all patients receiving home or in-center or home hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis care.