A Federal Government Web site managed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Working for Quality > About the National Quality Strategy (NQS)
Overview and Legislative Authority
Developing the National Quality Strategy
The Affordable Care Act seeks to increase access to high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans. To that end, the law, in Section 3011, requires the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish a National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Health Care (the National Quality Strategy) that sets priorities to guide this effort and includes a strategic plan for how to achieve it. This report describes the initial Strategy and plan for implementation.
The Secretary developed this initial National Quality Strategy and plan through a participatory, transparent, and collaborative process that reached out to a range of stakeholders for comment. This process culminated in a request for public comment on a proposed approach to the effort and a draft set of principles and priorities. More than 300 groups, organizations, and individuals provided comments representing all sectors of the health care industry and the general public. Based on this input, a set of three overarching aims were developed to establish a framework within which specific priorities could be identified and implemented.
The National Quality Strategy will pursue three broad aims. These aims will be used to guide and assess local, State, and national efforts to improve health and the quality of health care.
To advance these aims, the National Quality Strategy will focus initially on six priorities:
And finally, a set of ten basic principles (PDF File, 158 KB, PDF Help) were articulated, which will govern how health care services should be provided and how institutions and health professionals should conduct their activities.
A Federal Government Web site managed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality