In 1999, the US Joint Commission, a not-for-profit
organization that accredits and certifies healthcare organizations
to ensure the safety and quality of patient care,
collaborated with various international healthcare stakeholders
to identify opportunities to improve disease management
and reduce mortality. Despite the availability of effective
evidence-based medical interventions for common life-threatening
medical conditions, there was a high degree of
variability in use of these proven therapies in the patient
care setting. With a focus on quality care delivery through the
application of standardized medical treatment strategies,
evidence-based medical interventions were organized into
disease-specific core measure sets across several life-threatening
medical conditions. Each core measure set is comprised
of attributes which target, define, and specify the scientifically
valid and reliably applied actions needed to achieve improvement.
Corresponding, measurable criteria articulate the
specific actions needed to achieve the designated attribute.
Through the definition of clear, measurable benchmarks
for clinical practice, the Joint Commission’s core measure
concept has reduced mortality in the area of heart failure,
acute myocardial infarction and community acquired
pneumonia (Jha et al. 2007). Although these core measures
have improved patient and system outcomes within diseasespecific
areas (Jha et al. 2005), processes to standardize