CMS updates eligible hospital eCQM specs, unveils new tool
Updated specifications for the eligible hospital 2014 clinical quality measures (eCQMs) finalized in Meaningful Use Stage 2 of the EHR incentive program are now available on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) website.
Also, a new tool called Bonnie was launched that supports measure developers in an e-specification of clinical quality measures, according to a blog post by Kevin Larsen, MD, medical director of Meaningful Use at ONC.
The updated specifications represent a collaborative effort between CMS, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), the National Library of Medicine and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
“For Meaningful Use Stage 2, the certification of EHR technology is necessary to ensure the accurate capture, calculation and reporting of eCQMs and the electronic reporting of quality data to CMS. Data on these measures give invaluable feedback to providers on performance and clinician alignment with best practices,” wrote Larsen.
As for the new tool, Bonnie, it will allow developers to do the following:
- Independently load quality measure definitions from the Measure Authoring Tool
- Convert measure definitions into a format allowing execution of the measure logic
- Rapidly craft synthetic test patients
- Provide expected results for the test patients and evaluate if the defined logic behaves as expected, or deviates from the intent of the measure
“We look forward to full implementation of electronic reporting in 2014 and the certification of EHRs that use eCQMs. We welcome your feedback on the updated Meaningful Use Stage 2 eCQMs, resources provided, new testing tool and how we can continue to serve you better,” wrote Larsen.