FAQ
My NQMC Personalization
What features are available for "My NQMC" personalization?
- My Recent Searches: Terms you have recently searched appear on the home page directly below the main search box. Your three most recent searches are displayed ("View all…" will display up to 10 recent searches); clicking the term will run the search and display up-to-date results for that term (no account creation required).
- My Recently Viewed Measure Summaries: Measure summaries you have recently viewed appear on the home page. Your five most recently viewed summaries are displayed; clicking a title will display the summary page (no account creation required).
- My Favorite Organizations: You can save an organization as a "favorite." There is no limit to the number of organizations you can save to favorites. You will have the option to receive weekly e-mail alerts when a new summary or summaries associated with that organization have been published or if one or more summaries associated with that organization have been updated or withdrawn from the site.
How to save an organization as a favorite: In the By Organization browse, clicking on the star next to the organization's name will cause a pop-up window to appear allowing you to save the organization as a "favorite." Similarly, if you browse directly to an organization, you can save it as a "favorite" by clicking "Save to Favorites" in the top right corner of the organization results page (account creation required).
- Topic Alerts: You can sign up for e-mail alerts on topics of interest. The NQMC topics have been chosen based on resources such as Healthy People 2020, NQF National Priorities Partnership, and relevant content in the NQMC database. An alert will be sent when a summary or summaries, associated with that topic, have been published, updated, or withdrawn.
- Domain Alerts: You can sign up for e-mail alerts related to specific domains. An alert will be sent when a summary or summaries, associated with that domain, have been published, updated, or withdrawn.
- Expert Commentary Alerts: You can sign up to receive an alert when a new expert commentary is published to the NQMC site.
- My E-mail Alerts: Defined by favorite content, you can receive weekly e-mail alerts when your favorite content is published, updated, or withdrawn (account creation required). Refer to "What types of custom e-mail alerts are available and how can I sign up?" below for further information.
How can I sign up for a free account?
You can create an account directly from the home page, by clicking the My NQMC button in the left navigation, or by clicking the Sign in link in the top right corner of the site. To create an account, enter an e-mail address (required), password (required), password confirmation (required), first name (optional), and last name (optional).
What types of custom e-mail alerts are available and how can I sign up?
Every Monday, you will receive of digest of personalized content. Note: You will not receive an e-mail unless there are changes to your favorite content.
Alerts are available on any or all of the following:
- How to sign up for Favorite Measure Summary Alerts: Favorite summary alerts are accessible from your My NQMC Dashboard (account creation required). You may also sign-up to receive favorite summary alerts when you save a summary to your favorites via the pop-up window. An alert will be sent when your favorite summary or summaries have been updated or withdrawn from the site.
- How to sign up for Favorite Organization Alerts: Favorite organization alerts are accessible from your My NQMC Dashboard (account creation required). You may also sign-up to receive Favorite Organization alerts when you save an organization to your favorites via the pop-up window. An alert will be sent when a new summary or summaries associated with that organization have been published or if one or more summaries associated with that organization have been updated or withdrawn.
- How to sign up for Topic Alerts: Topic alerts are accessible from your My NQMC Dashboard (account creation required). By clicking "Add Topic Alerts" a pop-up window will appear with a list of available topics. A "Create Topic E-Mail Alerts" button is also accessible from the By Topic browse. An alert will be sent when a summary or summaries, associated with a topic, have been published, updated, or withdrawn.
- How to sign up for Domain Alerts: Domain alerts are accessible from your My NQMC Dashboard (account creation required). By clicking the "Add Domain Alerts" a pop-up window will appear with a list of domains. A "Create Domain E-Mail Alerts" button is also accessible from the By Domain browse and the Domain Framework and Inclusion Criteria page. An alert will be sent when a summary or summaries, associated with that domain, have been published, updated, or withdrawn.
- How to sign up for Expert Commentary Alerts: Expert Commentary alerts are accessible from your My NQMC Dashboard (account creation required). A "Create Expert Commentary E-Mail Alerts" button is also accessible from the Expert Commentaries landing page. An alert will be sent when a new Expert Commentary is published to the site.
How often are My NQMC e-mail alerts issued?
E-mail alerts are issued weekly on Monday. Note: You will not receive a My NQMC e-mail alert unless there are changes to your favorite content. Personal alerts will not affect the NQMC weekly e-mail (you will continue to receive this e-mail separately every Monday if you have subscribed).
How can I opt out of the passive personalization (My Recent Searches and My Recently Viewed Summaries) features?
In order to prevent recent searches and recently viewed summaries from being tracked, you must disable cookies in your Web browser. In Internet Explorer 9, click on Tools, then Internet Options, and then click on the Privacy tab. Next, click on the Advanced button and select the "Override automatic cookie handling" option. Next, block first-party cookies, and click OK. Clear your internet browser cache, close all open browsers, and return to the NQMC home page.
Scope of NQMC
What is the Domain Framework that is underpinning NQMC?
There are many dimensions of performance related to clinical health care delivery and population health within which measures can be developed. The classification of domains relies on a concept of criterion of quality that differentiates quality measures from related measures.
NQMC contains two major categories of measures: health care delivery measures and population health measures. Health care delivery measures are measures of care delivered to individuals and populations defined by their relationship to clinicians, clinical delivery teams, delivery organizations, or health insurance plans. Population health measures are measures that address health issues of individuals or populations defined by residence in a geographic area or a relationship to organizations that are not primarily organized to deliver or pay for health care services (such as schools or prisons).
Within each of the two major categories there are three sub-groups: quality measures, related health measures, and efficiency measures. Quality measures are supported by evidence demonstrating that they indicate better or worse care. Related health care measures assess non-quality aspects and are not supported by evidence demonstrating that they indicate better or worse care. Efficiency measures require balancing quality against health care-related cost.
See the Domain Framework and Domain Definitions for a listing of NQMC measure domains.
What are UMLS concepts, and how are they used on NQMC?
The U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) has developed the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) to "facilitate the development of computer systems that behave as if they 'understand' the meaning of the language of biomedicine and health." The UMLS consists of 3 knowledge sources, the Metathesaurus, the Semantic Network and the Specialist Lexicon, as well as computer tools to help developers integrate the information from these sources.
The Metathesaurus is a collection of more than 100 controlled vocabularies, thesauri, and code sets linked together via high-level semantic concepts. NQMC's master's level indexers apply terms from selected UMLS vocabularies to each measure summary and expert commentary to facilitate searching and browsing and to create relationships between similar documents. These vocabularies are:
- Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS)
- International Classification of Diseases - Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM)
- Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
- Physician Data Query (PDQ)
- Standard Product Nomenclature (SPN)
- Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine (Clinical Terms) (SNOMED CT)
- UMLS Metathesaurus (MTH)
- Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System (UMDNS)
Measure Submissions, Inclusion Criteria, Copyright Permission
Are there copyright restrictions on the information accessed through the NQMC Web site at www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov?
There are no copyright restrictions that prevent users from copying and/or distributing content found on NQMC, provided that all content is appropriately identified. NQMC's content (i.e., measure summaries, expert commentaries) is available for public use, and we encourage the distribution of our content, particularly for educational purposes. NQMC content may not be used for commercial and/or product endorsement purposes.
Although most of NQMC's content is free of restrictions, exceptions occur where individual measure developers have requested otherwise. Refer to the Copyright Statement field at the end of each summary to determine whether such restrictions apply and if users need to contact the measure developer.
NQMC seeks and receives permission from measure developers to include summaries of the original measure specifications that appear at www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov. NQMC does not have the authority to grant copyright clearance for the original measure specifications upon which the summaries are based. If you are interested in using/distributing the original measure specifications, you must contact the measure developer.
What are examples of measure documentation submitted to NQMC?
Measure developers submit measure specifications to NQMC in a variety of forms including the following:
- Annual Reports
- CD-ROMs/Databases
- Clinical Practice Guidelines/Clinical Practice Guideline Implementation Toolkits
- Patient Surveys/Questionnaires
- Published Journal Articles
- Technical Specifications Manuals/Technical Manuals
- User Manuals
- Various Information Accessible via Measure Developing Organizations' Web Sites
- PDF/WORD Documents
- Web-based Measure Kits
Publication Activity
Searching/Browsing
How can I find measures on a specific topic?
You can type your search term in the search box accessible in the masthead of all NQMC Web pages to quickly search the database. You can also browse the NQMC database by Topic (Disease/Condition, Treatment/Intervention, Health Services Administration), Domain, or Organization.
The About Search page contains useful tips on how to search the NQMC database for measures of interest. You can also use Advanced Search to perform refined searches of the NQMC database. This feature allows you to filter your search by one or more measure attributes (e.g., Care Setting, Professionals Responsible for Health Care, Current Use, Data Source).
Technical Questions
Are measure summaries available in a downloadable format?
Each measure summary provides a printable view via the Print link and several download types: PDF (download the free Adobe Reader ), Word (compatible with Word 1997 and higher), HTML, and XML. A citation for individual measure summaries can also be downloaded into EndNote by clicking on the Citation Manager link.
Miscellaneous
Is CONQUEST still available for download from AHRQ?
The Computerized Needs-Oriented Quality Measurement Evaluation System (CONQUEST) is no longer viewed as current guidance for quality improvement. However, NQMC builds on AHRQ's previous initiatives in quality measurement, including CONQUEST, the Expansion of Quality of Care Measures (Q-SPAN) project, the Quality Measurement Network (QMNet) project, and the Performance Measures Inventory (PMI).
AHRQ is now redirecting users to NQMC (www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov) to provide practitioners, health care providers, health plans, integrated delivery systems, purchasers, and others an accessible mechanism for obtaining detailed information on evidence-based health care quality measures and to further dissemination, implementation, and use of these measures in order to inform health care decisions. NQMC provides the latest information on selecting and comparing measures to assist users in assessing clinical performance to inform health care decisions.
How do I obtain the original measure documentation described in the measure summary?
For measures for which NQMC has received the necessary permissions from the measure developer, links are provided from the NQMC summary to the original measure documentation at the developer's Web site. Users can find this link by referring to the "Related Content" tab at the top of the each summary or by going to the Measure Availability field that appears near the end of each summary. NQMC is unable to fulfill orders for printed copies of the original measure documentation.
How do I cite the information found at the NQMC Web site (e.g., measure summary or expert commentary)?
The suggested citation format for a Measure Summary is:
National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC). Measure summary: [insert title of summary]. In: National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available: http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov.
Example: National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC). Measure summary: Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair: mortality rate. In: National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited 2008 Mar 19]. Available: http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov.
If you are citing the original measure upon which the summaries are based, please refer to the Source field included in each measure summary.
The suggested citation format for an Expert Commentary is:
Author [insert Commentary author]. Commentary title. In: National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available: http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov.
Example: Wachter RM. Is the Measurement Mandate Diverting the Patient Safety Revolution? In: National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited 2010 Feb 10]. Available: http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov.