Our expertise with FHIR and also with Clinical Quality Measures makes us a natural to participate in the Clinical Reasoning track, which focuses on using FHIR to improve clinical outcomes. The two tracts our Dynamic Team participated in were:
- ONC Certified EHR products will be required to support Bulk FHIR under the new 170.315(g)(1): Standardized API for Patient and Population Services.
- Deadline for Rollout: End of 2022
- Read our blog, FHIR Connectathon: Bulk Data for a developer’s recap.
- Electronic Clinical Quality Measures (eCQMs) are moving toward using FHIR as a data source.
- Timeframe: No deadline yet. Should happen over the next few years.
Connectathon Measure Categories
Eligible Professional (EP)/Eligible Clinician (EC) Measures:
- CMS 74v10: Primary Caries Prevention Intervention as Offered by Primary Care Providers, including Dentists
- CMS 122v9: Diabetes: Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) Poor Control (> 9%)
- CMS 124v9: Cervical Cancer Screening
- CMS 125v10: Breast Cancer Screening (also health plan level BCSE HEDIS measure)
- CMS 130v9: Colorectal Cancer Screening
- CMS 149v9: Dementia: Cognitive Assessment
- CMS 153v9: Chlamydia Screening for Women
- CMS 165v9: Controlling High Blood Pressure
- CMS 347v4: Statin Therapy for the Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease
Eligible Hospital (EH)/Critical Access Hospital (CAH) Measures:
- CMS 104v9: Discharged on Antithrombotic Therapy
- CMS 111v9: Median Admit Decision Time to ED Departure Time for Admitted Patients
- CMS 506v3: Safe use of opioids – concurrent prescribing
- CMS 29v1: Hybrid Hospital-Wide Readmission
This slide from the program gives a nice perspective of the “Quality Measurement Standards Landscape”:
The Data Exchange for Quality Measures (DEQM) component plays a crucial role in DHIT’s operations, as we frequently serve as the intermediary between Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems—which function as the authoritative data source—and various reporting agencies, such as the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). Following the Connectathon, DHIT’s Lead Developer, Matthew Dugal, shared his enthusiasm regarding the outcomes:
Our past experience with CQMsolution and FHIR has been to use the existing measures that are based on QDM data against a FHIR data store using a converter. But now the measures are being authored with FHIR data elements in mind. This would take out any ambiguity about the conversion process from FHIR to QDM.
Additional Resources
We are committed to maintaining industry leadership by incorporating FHIR-based measures into our 7.0 release, scheduled for the 2022 reporting period.
For a comprehensive list of FHIR-calculable measures or to learn more about our DHIT products and services, please contact us directly.
To access detailed information about Connectathon tracks and objectives, please visit our confluence page.
For more information on the outcome of the Connectathon, click here.
