(NQF: Washington, DC) -- To continue improving health care quality through measurement and public reporting, the National Quality Forum (NQF) has identified and approved  criteria for evaluating composite measures. The majority of the hundreds of NQF-endorsed quality measures focus on a single-care process, or even one step in the care process. Composite measures are a combination of two or more individual quality measures in a single measure that results in a single score.  

With the increasing interest in composite measures, a steering committee was appointed to address the additional considerations that are specifically relevant to evaluating such measures.

Within this project, NQF also endorsed composite measures in the areas of adult patient safety, mortality for selected conditions, and pediatric patient safety.

“Health care is a complex and multidimensional activity, and measurement of its quality should reflect that fact,” says Janet Corrigan, NQF president and CEO. “Having a standardized set of criteria for evaluation of composite measures will enable measurement that is richer, as composite measures extend measurement beyond tracking performance, providing a broader picture of health care quality so consumers can make more informed choices about their care and health care systems can get a deeper view of the reliability of the system.” 

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