Now Available: 2020 CMS QRDA I Implementation Guide, Schematron, and Sample Files for Hospital Quality Reporting

The 2020 CMS QRDA I Implementation Guide, Schematron, and Sample File for Hospital Quality Reporting Are Now Available

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has posted the 2020 CMS Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) Category I Implementation Guide (IG) for Hospital Quality Reporting (HQR) along with its Schematron and sample file. The 2020 CMS QRDA I IG outlines requirements for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals to report electronic clinical quality measures for the calendar year 2020 reporting period for the following programs:

• Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program
• Medicare and Medicaid Promoting Interoperability Programs (formerly known as the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs) for Eligible Hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs)

The final 2020 CMS QRDA I IG for HQR contains the following high-level change as compared with the 2019 CMS QRDA I IG:

• The IG upon which the 2020 CMS QRDA I IG is based – the HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) Release 2: Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) Category I, Release 1 – has been updated from Standard for Trial Use (STU) Release 5 to STU Release 5.1, published in December 2018. The main purpose of that update is to support Quality Data Model (QDM) version 5.4.
• Removed CDAC_HQR_EHR from the list of acceptable CMS Program Name codes for the 2020 reporting period.

Additional QRDA-Related Resources:

Additional QRDA-related resources, as well as current and past implementation guides, are found on the Electronic Clinical Quality Improvement (eCQI) Resource Center QRDA page. For questions related to this guidance, the QRDA Implementation Guides or Schematrons, visit the ONC Project Tracking System (JIRA) QRDA project.