Developing and Maintaining Electronic Clinical Quality Measures for Eligible Clinicians
The 2009 American Recovery & Reinvestment Act established the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which required the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide incentive payments under Medicare and Medicaid to clinicians who use electronic health records (EHRs).
Through this law and related funding, the U.S. health system began to digitalize. As a result, most eligible health care providers have adopted and are using EHRs.
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.
- Tim Hill, senior vice president, AIR Health Division
In December 2016, further legislative action was taken to advance EHR interoperability—the ability to exchange and use information in EHR systems—through the 21st Century Cures Act. The Cures Act final rule requires EHR systems and other health IT developers to update their certified health IT to support Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources and specific data standards.
These major CMS policy efforts designed to improve quality and safety, as well as digitize and integrate the U.S. health system, come together in specific CMS programs related to the Measure & Instrument Development and Support Eligible Clinician Electronic Clinical Quality Measure (eCQM) Development, Reevaluation, and Implementation Task Order.
AIR's Role
Under the eCQM Task Order, AIR assists CMS in developing, maintaining, and implementing electronic clinical quality measures used to assess Medicare clinician performance. The eCQMs are also used to calculate performance-based payment adjustments for clinicians who offer services to Medicare beneficiaries and participate in the CMS Medicare program, provide payment incentives, and offer alternative payment models to participating clinicians.
AIR also supports CMS’s requirements for updating clinician eCQMs maintained by other quality measure stewards (i.e., managers) and supports them in implementing updates.
In addition, AIR supports translating eCQMs for clinicians to a standard which will:
- Bolster CMS’s goals of digital transformation to advance interoperability;
- Improve alignment with clinical decision support;
- Enhance health care; and
- Minimize clinician’s time spent on administrative tasks.
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.
