Because the primary purpose of the LTQA white paper
was not an academic publication, and because many of
the documents that needed to be reviewed were not traditional
peer-reviewed publications, a systematic literature
review was not conducted. The current authors initiated
the search by reviewing two recently conducted systematic
reviews conducted for CMS and the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality9,10 were begun with.
From there, the search for existing quality measures that
define PPHs focused primarily on U.S. sources, including
research published in peer-reviewed journals; print and
Web-based documents and lists of measures published by
government and private organizations that compile,
endorse, and develop measures (e.g., AHRQ, CMS, the
National Quality Forum [NQF], and the National Committee
on Quality Assurance [NCQA]); governmental
demonstration projects and reports; and recent legislation
and regulations to operationalize the provisions of the
legislation issued up to the late fall of 2011. Sources were
reviewed going back in time from June 2011 until
the first use of specific wording related to PPHS was
located.