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In the early 2000s, following the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports on medical errors and the quality chasm (Institute of Medicine 2000, 2001), the National Quality Forum (NQF), a new private nonprofit entity, became central to the establishment of standards and policy relative to health care quality. NQF grew out of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry convened in 1996. The Advisory Commission was one of many ways in which entities concerned about the eroding quality of care began to consider how they might drive improvement. Ultimately, the Commission recommended the creation of a private‐sector entity, which then became the NQF. The expanding role of NQF over the next two decades is an instructive example of the collective efforts of many entities, whether professions, consumers, insurers, or others, working to shape and implement national policy, including the National Quality Strategy.

NQF’s overall purpose is to provide key leadership for a national health care quality measurement and reporting system. Its mission is focused on three themes: (a) build consensus on priorities and goals for health care quality; (b) play a major role in the endorsement of national consensus standards; and (c) use its collective membership to promote attainment of these standards in the delivery of care to consumers. From inception, the CMS, the Office of Personnel Management, and the AHRQ have been part of NQF. In addition, standard‐setting bodies like the Joint Commission, the National Commission for Quality Assurance, the IOM, the National Institutes of Health, and Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (PCPI)–American Medical Association (AMA) have had key liaison roles as well. Currently, there are nearly 450 NQF organizational members.

The development and expansion of NQF have included input from nurses with representation from organizational membership in NQF from its inception and continuing to the present. The American Nurses Association (ANA) was the first NQF nursing organization member, with others following suit over the next 20 years. As many as 23 entities representing nursing have been NQF members at various times, and nursing has held a seat on the NQF Executive Board in the past.

The NQF employs three strategies to collectively move quality as a national priority as well in driving performance improvement. These three strategies have been used by other coalitions and individual professions as well: (a) convening experts across the industry to define quality by developing standards and measures; (b) gathering information from measurement of performance through data reporting and analysis; and (c) identifying gaps in performance, information about which is then provided back to providers, institutions, and others to initiate performance improvement and public reporting. In addition, NQF, like other collective efforts, places ongoing focus on dissemination of tools and educational activities that promote health care improvement in the United States.

The expansiveness of the NQF structure has provided many touch points for nursing to influence its direction. Calls for endorsement of standards or measures require formal comment and ballot‐type voting. Calls for nominations to work groups based on content expertise or representation allow for formally nominating nursing leaders who can speak on behalf of quality through a nursing lens. Nursing leaders have had opportunities to serve in leadership roles within committees and work groups to react to the work of colleagues from other disciplines, and to inform, persuade, or dissent as needed, in the shaping of policy. And nurses have been instrumental in the development of tools and resources to advance quality at the front lines.