New Clinical Performance Measure (CPM)
Effective April 1, 2008, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) adopted 26 new clinical performance measures to assess the quality of dialysis care in the United States. They include a new requirement for annual measurement of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in most patients.
The new CPM for HRQOL will measure the number of patients who complete a KDQOL-36 with or without assistance at least once/year out of the number of eligible prevalent dialysis patients (peritoneal dialysis, in-center hemodialysis, home hemodialysis)[1], with exclusions for:
- Patients under age 18
- Those who cannot complete a KDQOL-36 due to cognitive impairment, dementia, active psychosis
- Non-English speakers/readers (for whom there is no native language translation or interpreter)
- Patients under the facility’s care for less than 3 months
- Patients who refuse to complete the KDQOL-36
When CROWNWeb is set up to collect data (est. early 2010), this CPM will officially take effect. At this time, clinics that use another tool to measure HRQOL will also need to administer the KDQOL-36 once per year.
