Last Updated April 2008
Background
In early 1999, The Joint Commission solicited input from a wide variety of stakeholders (e.g., clinical professionals, healthcare provider organizations, state hospital associations, healthcare consumers, performance measurement experts and others) about potential focus areas for core measures for hospitals. In May 2001, The Joint Commission announced the four initial core measurement areas for hospitals, which were acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure (HF), pneumonia (PN), and pregnancy and related conditions (PR).
Simultaneously, The Joint Commission worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the AMI, HF and PN sets that were common to both organizations. CMS and The Joint Commission worked together to align the measure specifications for the Quality Improvement Organizations (QIO) contracts and for the Joint Commission accredited hospitals that began collecting these 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 were 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.
In the fall of 2003 an additional measure set was added: Surgical Infection Prevention (SIP). Hospitals began collecting core measure data for SIP with patient discharges beginning July 1, 2004. The SIP set subsequently transitioned to the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) effective July 1, 2006.
The Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) is a national quality partnership of organizations interested in improving surgical care by significantly reducing surgical complications. SCIP Partners include the Steering Committee of 10 national organizations who have pledged their commitment and full support for SCIP:
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
- American College of Surgeons
- American Hospital Association
- American Society of Anesthesiologists
- Association of periOperative Registered Nurses
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- Institute for Healthcare Improvement
- The Joint Commission
- Veterans Health Administration
In addition, each of the SCIP target areas are advised by a technical expert panel (TEP). These groups have provided hours of technical expertise and resources to ensure the SCIP measures are fully supported by evidence-based research.
Finally, The Joint Commission continues to align with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) with respect to the performance measures for patients undergoing surgery.
Important Information
Where to find the SCIP Core Measure Set
The SCIP measures can be found in the Specification Manual for National Hospital Quality Measures