Background
In early 1999, the Joint Commission solicited input from a wide variety of stakeholders (e.g., clinical professionals, health care provider organizations, state hospital associations, health care consumers and convened a Cardiovascular Conditions Clinical Advisory Panel about the potential focus areas for core measures for hospitals. In May 2001, the Joint Commission announced four initial core measurement areas for hospitals, which included acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and heart failure (HF).
Simultaneously, the Joint Commission worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the AMI, and HF sets that were common to both organizations. CMS and the Joint Commission worked to align the measure specifications for use in the 7th Scope of Work and for Joint Commission accredited hospitals. Hospitals began collecting AMI measures for patient discharges beginning July 1, 2002.
In November of 2003, CMS and the Joint Commission began to work to precisely and completely align these common measures so that they are identical. This resulted in the creation of one common set of measure specifications documentation known as the Specifications Manual for National Hospital Quality Measures to be used by both organizations. The Manual contains common (i.e., identical) data dictionary, measure information forms, algorithms, etc. The goal is to minimize data collection efforts for these common measures and focus efforts on the use of data to improve the health care delivery process.
The Joint Commission continues to collaborate with CMS as well as the American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology (ACC) with respect to the performance measures for patients with an acute MI.
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Important Information
- March 2009, FACT Sheet on AMI's Diagnosed Late or Occuring Later into the Hospitalization.
- December 2008, Retirement of AMI-6
- October 2008, ECG fact sheet valid 4/1/08 through 9/30/09.
- August 2007, CMS/Joint Commission FACT Sheet on Hyrdalazine/Nitrates for Heart Failure in Black Patients.
- May 2, 2005 CMS/Joint Commission/Heart care Measure FACT Sheet on ACEI or ARB for LVSD (HF-3, AMI-3): ACE-inhibitor and ARB Contraindication/Intolerance.
- April 2005, ACC/AHA/AHRQ/CMS and Joint Commission's Practice Advisory, COMMIT/CCS-2 Trial Results.
- April 2005, ACC/AHA/AHRQ/CMS and Joint Commission's Measure FACT Sheet on beta blockers for AMI.
- November 15, 2004 Statement Regarding ACEI / ARB.
Where to find the AMI Core Measure Set
The AMI measures can be found in the Specification Manual for National Hospital Quality Measures