Hospitals: Electronic CQM reporting has arrived—Are you ready?

For many years, acute care hospitals participating in CMS' Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program (IQR) have been using manual chart abstraction to generate required quality data. But CMS' 2016 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule has added a new mandate to require hospitals to report some electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) via an electronic submission method in 2016. While CMS has provided an option for eCQM reporting for four years, the majority of hospitals have not chosen to use the option because it poses many challenges, such as technical complexities and significant resource needs.