Designing a Decision-Making Process for a Network Administrative Organization: A Case Study of the National Quality Forum’s Consensus Development Process

In 1999 the health care industry created the National Quality Forum—a network administrative organization—to address issues
of health care quality in a new way by bringing together organizations from the public and private sectors and providing them
with a forum to discuss and debate measures of quality, and ultimately, to effect change. Little, however, is known about
the decision making processes of network administrative organizations despite the fact that their decisions may have far-reaching
impacts on public policy. Using a grounded theory approach, this paper examines the creation and development of the NQF’s
Consensus Development Process and identifies and discusses five key principles that underlie the process. This paper argues
that in order to create a decision-making process for a network administrative organization that is balanced and inclusive
of diverse interests a leader must consider and incorporate principles that are representative of the larger environment.