On Dec. 15, CMS published 24 quality and efficiency measures under consideration for adoption in Medicare programs.
HHS employs this pre-rulemaking process to decide on measures for Medicare programs and releases a public list of the pitched measures each year. Interested parties can then provide recommendations and feedback. A news release said public commenting runs from Dec. 16 until Jan. 6.
Here are seven things to know about the measures:
1. Eight measures are currently in use but made the list because of “substantial changes to specifications.”
2. Two measures are also in use but are being considered for use in additional Medicare programs.
3. All the measures rely on data submissions with at least one digital source. All but one exclusively rely on digital sources, aligning with a CMS interoperability priority.
4. Seven of the 24 measures tackle the chronic conditions and related acute events meaningful measure priority.
5. Six address the safety meaningful measure priority.
6. Measures also address person-centered care, seamless care coordination and closing gaps of care.
7. The CMS programs with the most measures resubmitted for consideration due to specification changes are the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program and the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program.
This is the full list of the 24 measures:
- Dialysis facility discussion of patient life goals
- Excess antibiotic duration for adult hospitalized patients with uncomplicated community-acquired pneumonia
- Inappropriately broad empiric antibiotic selection for adult hospitalized patients with uncomplicated community-acquired pneumonia
- Advance care planning
- CollaboRATE shared decision-making tool for ambulatory or outpatient surgery patients
- Excess days in acute care after hospitalization for acute myocardial infarction
- Excess days in acute care after hospitalization for heart failure
- Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol monitoring and management
- Hospital 30-day, all-cause, risk-standardized mortality rate following acute myocardial infarction hospitalization
- Hospital 30-day, all-cause, risk-standardized mortality rate following heart failure hospitalization
- Excess days in acute care after hospitalization for pneumonia
- Hospital 30-day, all-cause, risk-standardized mortality rate following chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospitalization
- Rate of timely follow-up on abnormal screening mammograms for breast cancer detection
- Rate of timely follow-up on positive stool-based tests for colorectal cancer detection
- Hospital 30-day, all-cause, risk-standardized mortality rate following pneumonia hospitalization
- Adult community-onset sepsis standardized mortality ratio
- Hospital 30-day, all-cause, risk-standardized mortality rate following coronary artery bypass graft surgery
- Hospital sepsis program core elements score
- Excess days in acute care after hospitalization for diabetes
- Hospital 30-day, all-cause, risk-standardized readmission rate following sepsis hospitalization
- Facility level percentage of chronic hyperphosphatemia in dialysis patients
- Malnutrition care score
- Hospital harm — postoperative venous thromboembolism
- Emergency care access and timeliness
