Hospital Data Collection
Individual Hospital generation of quality of care measurement data is advancing on several fronts. In a small number of States, hospitals are, or soon will be, required by law to report hospital level indicators. Nationally, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) is creating a set of quality of care measures that hospitals must report as part of the accreditation process. Since the CMS 6SOW, CMS has been collecting quality of care measures at the state level for reporting purposes and is working with JCAHO to achieve consistency between the indicators used by the two organizations. Further, with the implementation of Hospital Quality Initiative activities as detailed below, many hospitals have begun to voluntarily abstract and collect quality of care measures, both in anticipation of associated reporting requirements and for internal quality improvement processes. In the future, it is expected that hospitals will report on a standard set of quality of care measures. The current data collection activities are listed below. Additional information, participation instructions and tools can be accessed from the public portion of the QualityNet (CMS approved data transmission portal) at www.qualitynet.org. 
Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU)
Under a new federal law, hospitals must submit quality performance data for all payers on all 10 required quality measures to receive the full annual payment update. Hospitals that do not participate in and meet all of the requirements of the RHQDAPU will receive a reduction of 2% in the annual payment update. Details
Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA)
The American Hospital Association (AHA), the Federation of American Hospitals (FAH), and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) are launching a national voluntary initiative to collect and report hospital quality performance information. This effort is intended to make critical information about hospital performance accessible to the public and to inform and invigorate efforts to improve quality. Voluntary reporting is an essential first step to realize this goal. This project builds upon previous CMS and QIO strategies to identify illnesses and/or clinical conditions that affect Medicare beneficiaries in order to: promote the best medical practices associated with the targeted clinical disorders; prevent or reduce further instances of these selected clinical disorders; and prevent related complications.
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the National Quality Forum (NQF), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) support this initiative as the beginning of an ongoing effort to make hospital performance information more accessible to the public, payers and providers of care. NQF, JCAHO, CMS, and AHRQ will provide technical assistance in developing and/or identifying quality measures; and assist in making the information accessible, understandable and relevant to the public. Details