Telehealth Update

On August 31, 2017, the National Quality Forum (NQF) published Creating a Framework to Support Measure Development for Telehealth, a final report recommending various methods to measure the use of telehealth. By way of quick background, NQF is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that seeks national collaboration to improve health and healthcare quality through measurement. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requested that NQF “convene a multistakeholder committee to recommend various methods to measure the use of telehealth as a means of providing care.” Report at 2. Among other things, the report analyzes the best way to ensure that clinical measures are appropriately applied to telehealth, proposes a measurement framework, sets some guidelines for future telehealth measurement, and identifies measurement gaps.