CMS timeline details quality reporting alignment expectations

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a timeline for eligible professionals and eligible hospitals detailing quality reporting alignment across eHealth initiative programs.

“Aligning quality measurement across CMS programs is an important focus for the eHealth initiative,” Kate Goodrich, acting director, quality measurement and health assessment group, wrote in the May 7 posting. Goodrich said the timeline highlights CMS’s vision and goals for achieving quality alignment by 2013 and beyond.

Per the timeline, by 2013 eligible hospitals must complete alignment of hospital value-based purchasing and inpatient quality reporting program clinical quality measures. Relatedly, eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals must implement the Medicare EHR incentive program electronic reporting pilot. Moreover, the timeline requires eligible professionals to implement the Physician Quality Reporting System-EHR incentive program pilot by 2013.

For more specifics on these requirements and those for 2014, see the full CMS post.