July 11, 2016
WASHINGTON, DC—The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) is pleased to announce that Premier Inc. (NASDAQ: PINC) is the first company to receive NCQA’s new Electronic Clinical Quality Measures (eCQM) Certification. This designation verifies Premier’s ability to automate pulling out and reporting of electronic clinical data used for HEDIS® (Healthcare Effectiveness Data Information Set) measures as well as measures reported in CMS EHR incentive programs.
“We applaud Premier for taking the bold first step in what will be a revolutionary component in health care data collecting and measurement,” says Margaret E. O’Kane, President, NCQA. “This certification represents the highest and most rigorous standard in data validation, and is a signal to the industry that we are pushing clinical data collection and reporting through a streamlined, verified electronic process to support our quality measurement programs. It also lays the groundwork for NCQA to offer similar services for our quality measurement programs, such as Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition.”
HEDIS is a comparative tool developed by NCQA and used by more than 90 percent of America’s health plans to measure performance in important dimensions of population health, including tracking immunizations, screenings and other preventive interventions in adult and pediatric patient populations. HEDIS reporting, which is required for NCQA Accreditation, enables employers, consultants and consumers to compare the performance of health plans on an “apples-to-apples” basis.
NCQA’s new eCQM Certification endorses technology companies that can accurately calculate eCQMs and demonstrate the ability to transfer clinical data collected for HEDIS reporting. Companies must meet a rigorous technology test for data validation and data file content, and demonstrate that they can accurately calculate eCQMs.
Health plans and provider organizations will soon be able to access Premier’s secure, cloud-based registry platform to begin streamlining their data workflow for HEDIS and avoid the need for expensive manual chart review and additional audit tasks.
The automated data collection process also enables providers and payers to access prospective views of their performance, which can inform initiatives aimed at improving patient care. Premier’s experience in quality assessment, advanced analytics and scaling performance improvement solutions will be key components of its eCQM HEDIS program.
“With most payers and providers burdened by labor-intensive and costly manual methods to extract HEDIS data, this designation is a significant differentiator for Premier.