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New manual helps streamline quality data reporting to CMS and JCAHO

Quality Improvement Monitor, September 29, 2004

CMS and the JCAHO have pledged to completely align current and future common hospital quality measures. To prove it, they jointly released a free online manual September 16 that includes specifications on common quality measures, a data dictionary, measure information forms, algorithms, and other technical support information.

The alignment will eventually make it easier and less costly for hospitals to comply with existing CMS and JCAHO requirements for data collection and reporting, according to the JCAHO.

The measure sets outlined in the manual refer to the JCAHO's core measures and CMS' quality measures for heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, and surgical infections. Historically, CMS and the JCAHO have had different dimensions for their quality data, such as specifications for data elements, types of cases excluded, and calculation of algorithms.

"This is a good thing for us in the front lines of data abstraction," says one quality resources director. "It means we can collect one set of information and make it accessible to all those inquiring minds."

-- Wendy Johnson
wjohnson@hcpro.com

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