In a May 30, 2018 letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma, HIMSS offered comments to CMS in response to the CMS electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) and quality reporting strategy for eligible hospitals and eligible clinicians. In this letter, HIMSS leverages its members' expertise in offering feedback the future state of federal quality measurement and reporting, and they look forward to a continued dialogue with CMS on quality reporting within the healthcare IT community, especially around CMS continuing transition of the Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) program, the Promoting Interoperability (PI) program, the Quality Payment Program (QPP), Hospital Acquired Conditions Reduction Program (HACRP), and the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program(HRRP).
The 2018 HIMSS eCQM Letter highlights the steps that policymakers should take to:
- Ensure that eCQM reporting accurately reflects the quality of care delivered.
- Minimize the implementation and data collection burden on providers and health IT developers by using information already collected for care and reducing the introduction of new workflows.
- Promote the value proposition of quality measurement and reporting by promoting data visualization as a driver for quality improvement.