The adoption of electronic health records and their meaningful use will be a tool for hospitals to help prove quality measures related to the Value-Based Purchasing Program similar to the way it will underpin other programs that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released as part of the health reform law.
The Value-Based Purchasing Program final rule released April 29 marks an historic change in how CMS will pay hospitals based on care quality and not just the quantity of the services that they supply
Some of the clinical quality measures in the incentive program for the meaningful use of certified electronic health records (EHRs) overlap or align with the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) program and the Value-Based Purchasing Program, according to the purchasing program details in the rule.
CMS said it will use the same validation method for the value-based purchasing program that it uses in its 2013 Hospital IQR program to ensure the accuracy of the measure data from patient records.
The financial incentives for the meaningful use of certified EHRs will encourage greater EHR-based reporting of clinical quality measures under the Hospital IQR, which are subsequently used for the value-based purchasing program, according to CMS.
“We believe that electronic reporting of measure information is a necessary step towards a more integrated health care system and one we intend to encourage in future Hospital Value-Based Purchasing rulemaking,” CMS said in the program details.
Furthermore, CMS said that it is “actively planning to synchronize the various reporting programs in order to ensure harmony among measures across various settings.”
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Using the same specifications for similar measures for meaningful use and value-based purchasing efforts would reduce confusion from multiple overlapping measures, reduce the costs of developing measures and potentially address the limitations of CMS data collection methods, the agency said.
CMS will work with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) on operational issues involved when aligning value-based purchasing and meaningful use, including harmonizing the specifications of overlapping measures and considering developing new policies to protect patient privacy when accessing electronic data.
CMS has started work directed toward enabling EHR submission of quality measures through standards development. CMS has sponsored the creation of electronic specifications for quality measures for the hospital inpatient setting and will also work toward electronically specifying measures selected for the Hospital IQR program and the value-based purchasing program.
