In late 2008, The Joint Commission received funding from the Partnership for Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the Department of Health and Human Services, to develop, specify, and test standardized performance measures addressing tobacco and alcohol screening and cessation counseling. Working with a Technical Advisory Panel (TAP), 8 performance measures (4 for Tobacco Treatment, and 4 for Alcohol Use) were suggested that would address all hospitalized inpatients, irrespective of their diagnosis/clinical condition known as global (population) performance measures. The measures were tested during a 6 month pilot test in the Spring/Summer of 2010. Following the pilot test, the measures were separated into two distinct measure sets (Tobacco Treatment-TOB, and Substance Use – SUB).
The TOB measure set containing 4 measures was approved as a core measure set for use in the Joint Commission’s ORYX program, and became available for selection by hospitals to meet their four core measure set accreditation requirement effective January 1, 2012.
The TOB measures can be found in the Specification Manual for National Hospital Inpatient Quality Measures. Submit your questions about the TOB measure specifications to the Performance Measurement Network Q&A Forum.
Important Information