Updates to the Electronic Clinical Data Distinction in Health Plan Report Cards
September 16, 2024 · NCQA Communications
NCQA has discontinued the Electronic Clinical Data Distinction in our Health Plan Report Cards. NCQA introduced the Electronic Clinical Data Distinction in 2021 to highlight organizations that reported quality measures leveraging electronic clinical data. The 2023 Report Card, representing HEDIS MY 2022, was the final year for organizations to earn the Distinction.
Health plans are at different stages of readiness for leveraging clinical data; we recognize that it takes time to shift resources to capturing and sharing information digitally. NCQA’s strategy has been to introduce measures for optional reporting, and slowly phase them into public reporting status. During this transition we wanted to highlight those health plans that are going the “extra mile” to report new and sometimes challenging quality measures.
Public Reporting – An Essential Step Toward Progress
To earn the Distinction, organizations were required to report a performance rate of >0 for at least one measure introduced for the HEDIS ECDS Reporting Standard that was not yet publicly reported. Over time, the number of measures in the Distinction decreased as more measures advanced to public reporting status. Public reporting helps to foster accountability and transparency; also, it is essential to enabling increased reporting and better use and exchange of clinical data. As of MY 2023, only one ECDS measure is not publicly reported: Social Needs Screening and Intervention (SNS-E). Providing the Distinction for one measure does not meet its original intent, so we discontinued it in 2024.
Over the last 3 years, many health plans across product lines have earned the Distinction. In MY 2022, this included 77% of commercial plans, 36% of Medicaid plans and 30% of Medicare plans. Although challenges remain, this is an indication of the progress plans are making toward leveraging more electronic clinical data for quality measurement.
What’s Next?
Using and sharing clinical data enriches the information available to patients, providers and health plans; addresses relevant clinical outcomes; and better supports care improvement activities. Measures that leverage clinical data captured routinely during care delivery can also reduce providers’ burden to collect data for quality reporting.
NCQA continues to develop new digital measures that address populations, treatments and health outcomes not previously included in HEDIS because of the limitations of traditional data sources. We recently introduced three new measures specified for the ECDS reporting method for MY 2025. We will continue to support adoption of these measures, encourage public reporting and uptake in programs and explore other opportunities to highlight organizations efforts to drive improvement.
See the ECDS webpage for updates and resources related to ECDS reporting.
