Quality measures are powerful tools for advancing quality in the healthcare system. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) programs, including the Quality Innovation Network – Quality Improvement Organization program, implement a wide range of measures that serve quality priorities, such as promoting healthcare that is effective, safe, efficient, patient-centered, equitable and timely.
CMS recently released a Quality Measures Guide which explains the complexity of the quality measure development process, which is designed to ensure quality measures are appropriate for use as well as the role quality measures play in helping the U.S. healthcare system improve the quality of care and reduce costs.
To ensure that quality goals are capable of promoting these benefits, quality measures undergo a rigorous, time-intensive process that helps align them with the critical evaluation criteria. The user-friendly CMS Guide offers insight as to how the quality measures align with CMS priorities, the types of quality measures and how they are identified, implemented and evaluated.
CMS Quality Programs
CMS quality programs address care across the care continuum and encourage improvement of quality through use of payment incentives, payment reductions and quality improvement activities, while also increasing transparency through expanded public reporting of performance results. Quality measures are implemented into the healthcare system through one of these quality programs. Example programs include:
For a complete list of quality programs, visit the Quality Programs page on the Measures Management System (MMS) website