How the National Quality Forum Plans to Measure Telehealth Quality, Value

Managed Care Cast

As the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a nation-wide boom in telehealth use, new questions are emerging regarding reimbursement, accessibility, data protection, and quality measurement. Although the practice has greatly aided in maintaining care for many Americans throughout the past year, several challenges have been reported. To create a measurement framework linking quality of care delivered by telehealth, health care system readiness, and health outcomes in rural areas specifically, the National Quality Forum (NQF) recently announced a committee of 25 individuals to discuss, update, and enhance NQF’s telehealth framework, first released in 2017. Currently, there are no nationally endorsed telehealth quality measures. On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Sheri Winsper, RN, MSN, MHA, the senior vice president for quality measurement at NQF. For the past 20 years, the forum has worked to advance health care quality across the nation by endorsing measures that assess quality of care and value. It also develops specific measurement frameworks for gap areas.