American Institutes for Research Wins CMS Contract to Improve Clinical Quality Measures for Medicare Beneficiaries
Arlington, Va. – The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has awarded the American Institutes for Research (AIR) a five-year contract to support the CMS Center for Clinical Standards and Quality and Quality Measurement and Value-based Incentives Group.
The contract, worth more than $30 million, supports CMS in the development, maintenance, and implementation of electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) used to assess Medicare clinician performance. The eCQMs are also used to calculate performance-based payment adjustments for clinicians who provide services to Medicare beneficiaries and participate in the CMS Quality Payment Program (QPP) Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), MIPS Value Pathways, and alternative payment models. The AIR team will also support CMS’s requirements for updating clinician eCQMs maintained by other quality measure stewards and support those stewards in implementing updates.
In addition, the AIR team will support translating eCQMs for clinicians to the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard to support CMS’s goals of digital transformation to advance interoperability, improve alignment with clinical decision support, enhance health care, and reduce the overall reporting burden for clinicians.
Through their use in quality reporting and value-based payment programs, the measures developed and maintained under this contract support CMS efforts to improve care and safety for Medicare beneficiaries with a wide range of physical and mental health conditions.
AIR’s partners in the project include the University of California at Davis; Smile Digital Health; Clinician-Driven Quality Solutions; and Lazy Labs, LLC. Additionally, AIR will utilize the American Board of Family Medicine’s (ABFM’s) PRIME Registry data in measure testing activities.
“Our team at AIR and our partners are eager to work with CMS to improve quality care and, ultimately, to improve the lives of beneficiaries. This work is directly aligned with both our mission and our deep expertise,” said Tim Hill, senior vice president of AIR’s Health Division.
About AIR
Established in 1946, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution that conducts behavioral and social science research and delivers technical assistance both domestically and internationally in the areas of health, education, and the workforce. AIR's work is driven by its mission to generate and use rigorous evidence that contributes to a better, more equitable world. With headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, AIR has offices across the U.S. and abroad. For more information, visit www.air.org.