This is why significant effort was made to harmonize these performance measures with other existing measures, espe- cially when these earlier measures had been endorsed by the NQF. When the writing group felt that an existing performance measure was not optimal, the relevant performance measure was made according to writing group specifications, and this divergence is described in more detail later. Finally, it is recog- nized that all 9 of these proposed performance measures assess process and not patient outcome directly. The writing group spent a substantial amount of time discussing whether patient outcomes could be used rather than process, and this was the initial desire for several of the original drafts of performance measure specification sets. Examples of this could include less hematoma expansion with timely coagulopathy reversal, lower pneumonia rates from dysphagia screening, and improved functional outcome from rehabilitation services. However, a Table 2. AHA/ASA Performance Measure Set for Hospitalized Patients With ICH No. Performance Measure NQF Endorsed CDC PCNASR/AHA GWTG-Stroke TJC CMS HIQRP AHA Ischemic Stroke Performance Measure New Measure 1 Baseline severity score 2 Coagulopathy reversal o 3 Venous thromboembolism prophylaxis o o o o o 4 Admission unit 5 Dysphagia screen: assessment o o 6 Dysphagia screen: management o o 7 Long-term blood pressure treatment 8 Assessed for rehabilitation 9 Avoid corticosteroids indicates identical measure present in other measurement set; o, analogous but not identical measure present in other measurement set; AHA, American Heart Association; ASA, American Stroke Association; CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; CMS, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; GWTG-Stroke, Get With The Guidelines Stroke; HIQRP, Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program; ICH, intracerebral hemorrhage; NQF, National Quality Forum; PCNASR, Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Registry; and TJC, The Joint Commission. 