I saw this a little late (which to me says something about the legislative process), but today’s the last day to provide feedback to the HIT Policy Committee’s Quality Measure Workgroup for Stage 2 and Stage 3 meaningful use. Here’s some information about it from this Health Care IT News article.

The tiger teams have already proposed measure concepts for each of the domain areas, Lansky said. After reviewing the teams’ recommendations, the workgroup revised and consolidated the measure concepts and now requests public comment on the proposed concepts.

Lansky said the workgroup is requesting general comments and specific examples of measures for each measure concept that fit the following criteria:

• HIT-sensitive – Capable of being built into electronic health record (EHR) systems with implementation of relevant health IT functions (e.g., clinical decision support) that result in improved outcomes and/or clinical performance
• Parsimonious – Applies across multiple types of providers, care settings and conditions
• Demonstrates preventable burden – Supports potential improvements in population health and reduces burden of illness
• Assesses health risk status and outcomes – Supports assessment of patient health risks that can be used for risk adjusting other measures, and assessing changes in outcomes, including general cross-cutting measures of risk status and functional status and condition-specific measures
• Longitudinal – Enables assessment of longitudinal, condition-specific, patient-focused episodes of care

Comments to the workgroup can be submitted online here.

In MedCity News, John Halamka makes an effort to summarize as simply as possible the Quality Measures:

I’ve been asked to summarize the Quality Measures as simply as possible

a. The Core Measures for All Eligible Professionals, Medicare and Medicaid are in the Final Rule Table 7, page 287. The Measures are

• Hypertension: Blood Pressure Measurement
• Tobacco Use Assessment and Tobacco Cessation Intervention
• Adult Weight Screening and Follow-up

b. If the denominator for one or more of the Core Measures is zero, EPs will be required to report results for up to three Alternate Core Measures. The Alternate Core Measures for Eligible Professionals are in the Final Rule Table 7, page 287. The Measures are

• Weight Assessment and Counseling for Children and Adolescents
• Preventive Care and Screening: Influenza Immunization for Patients ? 50 Years Old
• Childhood Immunization Status

c. The Clinical Quality Measures for Submission by Medicare or Medicaid EPs for the 2011 and 2012 Payment Year (EPs must choose 3) are in the Final Rule Table 6, page 272 . Here’s a summary of the 44 quality measures that CMS posted last week.

d. The Clinical Quality Measures for Submission by Eligible Hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals for Payment Year 2011-2012 are in the Final Rule Table 10, page 303. The Measures are

• Emergency Department Throughput ’ admitted patients Median time from ED arrival to ED departure for admitted patients
• Emergency Department Throughput ’ admitted patients Admission decision time to ED departure time for admitted patients
• Ischemic stroke ’ Discharge on anti-thrombotics
• Ischemic stroke ’ Anticoagulation for A-fib/flutter
• Ischemic stroke ’ Thrombolytic therapy for patients arriving within 2 hours of symptom onset
• Ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke ’ Antithrombotic therapy by day 2
• Ischemic stroke ’ Discharge on statins
• Ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke ’ Stroke education
• Ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke ’ Rehabilitation assessment
• VTE prophylaxis within 24 hours of arrival
• Intensive Care Unit VTE prophylaxis
• Anticoagulation overlap therapy
• Platelet monitoring on unfractionated heparin
• VTE discharge instructions
• Incidence of potentially preventable VTE

Everything clear now?