National Quality Forum

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
522175544
IRS 990 coverage
2010–2024
Forms available
Form 990 2024
Location
Washington, DC, USA
Phone
2027831300
Rating
66
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Research Institutes and/or Public Policy Analysis

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$8,240,139
Expenses
$12,085,622
Assets
$25,393,106
Liabilities
$18,692,637

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

25 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Dana Gelb Safran ScD (President & CEO)
  • Amol Batra (Senior Vice President & Chief Legal Counsel (Through January))

Highest reported compensation

  • Jonathan B Perlin MD PhD MSHA (Director): $2,825,944 total reported compensation
  • Jean Courtney CPA (EVP & CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER): $2,527,222 total reported compensation
  • James Merlino (EVP CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER): $1,101,472 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

The mission of national quality forum (nqf) is to be the trusted voice driving measurable health improvements. Nqf was founded in 1999 as a not-for-profit-membership-based organization in response to the president's advisory commission on consumer protection and quality in the healthcare industry, which called for an organization to lead quality measurement as a formal consensus-based entity (cbe). Nqf is a trusted convener that operates consistently as a cbe governed by a consumer-purchaser majority board. Nqf brings together diverse organizations and individuals from across all categories of stakeholders in the healthcare field including patients, caregivers, hospitals, healthcare systems, clinicians, payers, employers, and policy makers. With extensive experience identifying and developing consensus strategies to address barriers to measure development, use, and implementation, nqf forges novel partnerships to advance measures that lower measurement burden.

What it reported doing in 2024

Quality programs innovation and measurement: nqf develops and advances quality innovation strategies through collaboration with its members and other stakeholders. Nqf aims to expand the organization's impact on health improvements through a variety of partnerships and projects. Nqf's programmatic work impacts participating organizations, proposed legislation, and the measurement science and application landscape. Participating organizations often learn about leading practices and apply the insights they gain to programs and processes at their organizations to drive improvement in the field. This work connects to quality measurement work to amplify nqf's impact in the healthcare ecosystem. Resources developed as part of past programmatic work including playbooks and implementation guides that highlight best practices and lessons learned on a variety of topics and are designed to help stakeholders, including consumers, front-line clinicians, and healthcare executives improve healthcare quality measurement and implementation. Nqf sets standards for healthcare quality measures based on evidence and innovation to make care better for all people. Healthcare quality measures establish important standards of care and are key to enhancing healthcare value, equity, and safety. Funded by public and private sources, nqf has solved a diverse array of challenging and often controversial quality measurement issues enabling consensus progress on priority setting, measurement methods, measure development, infrastructure and data development, and quality improvement. Nqf has a long history of success recruiting and engaging foremost experts and a broad array of stakeholders, including both members and non-members, to volunteer their time and expertise across a wide range of consensus-driven projects to forge consensus on development, testing, and implementation of measures.

Operating model

Revenue model
Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
Distribution model
Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.

The verdict

SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and most voting board members are independent. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and the filing does not identify recipients for some grant dollars.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 77
  • Transparency & Controls: 49
  • Accountability: 92
  • Sustainability: 21
  • Growth: 20

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Program expense ratio: 63.9%; rating input score 64
  • Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
    • Compensation committee: Missing
    • Independent consultant: Missing
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Missing
    • Compensation survey or study: Missing
    • Board or committee approval: Pass
  • Foreign activity oversight: Scored; rating input score 0
  • Grant itemization coverage: Scored; rating input score 0
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 86.7%; rating input score 87; 18th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Pass
    • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -46.7%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.1; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.74; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 41.9%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: -1.9% per year; rating input score 0; 9th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: -3.6% per year; rating input score 0; 5th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 6.1% per year; rating input score 100; 41st percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 63.9% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 13 of 15 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $7.7M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $2.8M · 25 people listed · 1 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $1.2M reported
  • Consistency: 34 of 34 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, and executive pay
  • Filing history: 14 filing years from 2010 to 2024
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 7 filed money-flow records
  • Related organizations: 2 filed related-organization links
  • Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
  • People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

  • High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight scored 0/100.
  • High — Transparency & Controls: Grant itemization coverage scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 2/100.
  • High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 2/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 12/100.