The Weekly Quality Brief: 2027 eCQM Specifications, Hospital Harm Requirements, and CJRX Quality Scoring (5/14/26)

The Weekly Quality Brief

• 36 min

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This episode covers updates from CMS quality reporting programs, proposed rule changes, hospital harm measure requirements, FHIR-based data submission, and the proposed CJRX payment model. CMS & Quality Reporting Updates CMS Care Compare April refresh and publication of 2026 Star Ratings Updates to quarterly public reporting data, including HAIs and HCAHPS Release of 2027 hospital and clinician eCQM specifications and updated value sets Planned updates to Quality Academy playbooks and value set comparison resources Discussion of the CMS Measures Under Consideration (MUC) list and how proposed measures may move into future IQR, OQR, and ASCQR programs eCQM & Future Measure Discussions Potential expansion of Advanced Care Planning eCQM into ASCQR Discussion of substantive measure changes within the IQR program Review of future measure tracking and proposed reporting changes FHIR API & Psychiatric Reporting Explanation of FHIR APIs and standardized healthcare data exchange Overview of CMS plans to use FHIR API submission for the psychiatric Patient Assessment Instrument (PAI) Discussion of USCDI-aligned data element updates and implications for EHR vendors and reporting systems Hospital Harm Measures & NHSN Reporting Confirmation that Hospital Harm Falls with Injury and Hospital Harm Acute Kidney Injury measures are mandatory beginning in 2028 Clarification of oncology CAUTI and CLABSI exception reporting requirements for hospitals without oncology units NHSN submission deadlines and CMS exception form timelines Information Transfer & AI Abstraction Tools Medisolv plans to support the Information Transfer PRO-PM measure Availability of the measure within Encore chart-abstracted applications Discussion of Medisolv’s partnership with Lilac for automated survey workflows Overview of Health Elements AI abstraction capabilities and future integration plans for registry abstraction workflows Maternal Morbidity Structural Measure Clarification of proposed updates to the maternal morbidity structural measure requirements Discussion of proposed reporting requirements for Perinatal Quality Improvement Collaborative participation beginning with 2026 reporting periods Mortality Measures & Value-Based Purchasing Explanation of why mortality measures are being reintroduced into IQR before updates to the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program Review of proposed mortality measure specification updates, including: Medicare Advantage patient inclusion Two-year performance periods ICD-10-based risk adjustment methodology Timeline for public reporting and future inclusion within HVBP CJRX Payment Model & Quality Scoring Overview of the proposed CJRX mandatory payment model for short-term acute care hospitals Explanation of HCAHPS linear mean roll-up scoring methodology Review of THA/TKA PRO-PM scoring and substantial clinical benefit calculations Discussion of risk adjustment, inverse probability weighting, and reliability adjustments Breakdown of CJRX composite quality score calculations, including: Inpatient and outpatient measure weighting Complication measures HCAHPS and OAS CAHPS scoring Patient-reported outcome weighting National percentile ranking methodology Discussion of inpatient versus outpatient LEJR weighting within composite quality scores Operational & Platform Notes Guidance for workflow- and EHR-specific questions within Quality Academy community groups Planned fixes for the Future Measures Tracker PDF export issue Reminder regarding Quality Academy scheduling survey participation