WASHINGTON – National Quality Forum President and CEO Janet Corrigan has submitted her resignation, effective late June 2012. 

The NQF Board of Directors announced Corrigan’s resignation on March 1. Corrigan has served as NQF’s president and CEO for more than six years. She plans to spend time with family and travel abroad, before embarking on any new professional opportunities. 

The NQF Board of Directors has created a search committee to immediately launch a national search for a new president and CEO. John Tooker, MD, CEO emeritus, American College of Physicians will lead the search committee. 

William Roper, MD, chair of the NQF Board of Directors released this statement on behalf of the NQF Board:

“Janet’s leadership of NQF has been a lesson in vision, determination, impact, and humility.  During her tenure as CEO, NQF has made substantial contributions in advancing healthcare quality.  Originally constituted around serving as a national voluntary consensus standard-setting organization, which remains its core foundational activity, NQF’s charge now includes a deeper and broader set of activities designed to help improve the quality and value of American healthcare more rapidly. 

"She played a pivotal role in our collective, successful effort to establish a multi-stakeholder consultative process as part of HHS rule-making – ensuring that rules are informed upstream by all stakeholders impacted by their decisions," Roper said. "The National Priorities Partnership and Measure Applications Partnership are both testaments to our belief in the true transformative power of collective public-private sector focus, alignment, and action.  Aspiring to ensure measurement can flourish in a 21st century healthcare system, Janet also led NQF to enter the important but less traveled road of measurement powered by health information technology."

“NQF convenings, educational programs, and reports have educated thousands of healthcare leaders.  The federal government relies extensively on NQF-endorsed measures, as do many private purchasers, and use of NQF-endorsed measures is on the rise at the community level.  A legacy of Janet’s leadership is that when something carries the NQF’s imprimatur, it is widely acknowledged to be a product that is neutral, evidence-based, grounded in the widest range of stakeholder perspectives, and focused on lasting change,”  he added.
 
“Reflecting on our accomplishments over the last six years, I am deeply proud of NQF’s contributions to the overall healthcare quality movement,” said Corrigan.  “Working with NQF leadership, our dedicated members, our scores of volunteer experts, and our committed partners at HHS, we have accelerated the critical work of achieving a healthcare system that provides safer, better, and more affordable care.  I am eternally grateful for this experience to steer NQF during an unprecedented time of change in healthcare.  Sustained, systemic change that benefits patients is within our reach.  The strength of the NQF Board of Directors and executive team, coupled with our organizational stability and future possibility to meet our mission gives me the confidence to take the leap to my next chapter in life.”