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The National Quality Forum will join the Joint Commission, while maintaining its independence in convening and developing consensus-based measures, the organizations  Aug. 16. They said the affiliation will allow the organizations “to build upon their shared expertise in measuring quality and rationalizing the measurement landscape, so the focus shifts from competing measures to advancing key outcomes.” 

Nancy Foster, AHA's vice president of quality and patient safety policy, said, “This strategic alliance could benefit health care providers and their patients by creating greater consensus around which measures are important and most likely to inform hospitals’ quality improvement efforts. For more than 70 years, the Joint Commission has helped hospitals improve their quality. By aligning with the National Quality Forum — a leader in identifying effective quality measures — health care providers, patients and other stakeholders should gain a clearer and more consistent understanding of what excellence in health care looks like with a more streamlined set of metrics.”