Leaders in both the public and private sectors moved to create the National Quality Forum in late 1999 our of a shared sense or urgency about the need for valid, reliable, and standardized healthcare performance measures to support and advance public accountability, quality improvement efforts, increased patient safety, and value-based purchasing. ? ? Established as a public-private partnership and public benefit corporation, based on the recommendation of the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry, NQF now has over 300 members reflecting broad participation from all parts of the healthcare system. Largely through the efforts of NQF, standardized measures are becoming available for use at both the local and national levels and through all care settings. With the increased success of NQF to endorse standardized measures, implementation becomes both more critical and a greater challenge. This requires meaningful collaboration among all stakeholders. The NQF Annual Meeting in recent years has been an opportunity to bring together these representatives from the entire healthcare industry to hear about the latest developments in the healthcare quality landscape and to discuss the challenges and opportunities in implementing NQF-endorsed voluntary consensus standards. The meeting reflects what the Members have indicated what will be most beneficial in advancing the healthcare quality agenda. Through a combination of plenary sessions, panel discussions, and small group breakouts, the attendees are able to hear about significant trends in healthcare quality and engage in focused discussions on how to implement performance measures and other tools in their organizational settings. Since its inception, the NQF Annual Meeting has been a forum for nurturing a sense of common purpose and promoting a shared framework for quality measurement, reporting, and improvement across the disparate stakeholders in the healthcare system. ? The importance of working together and finding common ground is becoming more critical. The theme of NQF's National Quality Forum's 6th Annual Meeting is """"""""Collaborating Among Stakeholders to Meet the Challenges of Healthcare Quality Improvement. ? ? ? ?
