Updated clinical performance and quality measures for treating adult patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib) or atrial flutter have been expanded to include the inpatient setting, and now address care domains that were not previously included, such as patient safety, effective clinical care, communication and care coordination. The updated measure set was released June 27 by the ACC and the American Heart Association (AHA), and published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The writing committee developed a comprehensive AFib measure that includes 24 total measures, including six performance measures (three inpatient measures and three outpatient measures) and 18 quality measures (10 inpatient measures and eight outpatient measures). The document acknowledges that providers, practices or facilities may choose to adopt some but not all of the measures in their entirety.

According to the authors, the broadened scope will further improve the continuity of care for AFib patients by addressing the multiple settings in which they receive care, and the updated clinical performance and quality measure set is intended to serve as an ACC/AHA AFib measures library. The authors aimed to ensure that the quality measures were developed on the basis of guideline recommendations and were made available to sites that may choose to implement them to look at the quality of care rendered to patients with AFib. The measures will be added to ACC’s PINNACLE Registry for outpatient quality improvement during a future update. 

“The writing committee believes that implementation of this clinical performance and quality measure set by providers, physician practices, and hospital systems will help to enhance the quality of care provided to patients with AFib in both the inpatient and outpatient settings, and thereby improve their quality of life,” says Paul A. Heidenreich, MD, MS, FACC, chair of the writing committee.

Keywords: Arrhythmias, Cardiac, Atrial Fibrillation, Atrial Flutter, Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors, Anti-Arrhythmia Agents, Calcium Channel Blockers, Catheter Ablation, Coronary Artery Disease, Decision Making, Factor Xa Inhibitors, Heart Failure, Heart Valve Diseases, Kidney Failure, Chronic, Platelet Aggregation Inhibitors, Risk Assessment, Renal Dialysis, Sotalol, Stroke Volume, Thrombin, Warfarin

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