FHIR Connectathon: Clinical Reasoning

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.
  • 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.

During the Connectathon, we worked aggressively on the track and calculation of the listed measures:

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 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 is important to DHIT, as we are often the intermediary between the EHR (source of truth) and the reporting agency (e.g. MIPS). DHIT’s CQMsolution Lead Developer, Matthew Dugal, expressed excitement after the Connectathon:

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.

Keeping up with the industry pace with plans of having FHIR based measures in our 7.0 release for the 2022 reporting period. Contact us for a list of measures that can be calculated by FHIR or for more information on DHIT products and services.nnFor more detailed information on the Connectathon tracks and goals, see confluence.

For more information on the outcome of the Connectathon, click here.