Lantana Consulting Group to Lead CMS Hospital Quality Initiatives Support Contract

$7.6M Award for Management of Public Reporting on Hospital Compare Website; Program Assists Patients in Comparing Hospital Quality of Care

Lantana Consulting Group was awarded a $7.6 million contract to support the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in managing public reporting for the Hospital Quality Initiatives (HQI) over the next five years. The contract is Lantana’s first task order award within its CMS Measure and Instrument Development and Support (MIDS) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract.

“To date we’ve worked in quality data definition, capture, EHR extraction, and reporting” said Liora Alschuler, Lantana CEO.  “This contract gives us an opportunity to follow the process through to the end user and understand it from the perspective of the provider and patient as a consumer of quality reports.”

CMS launched the Hospital Compare website in 2005, posting data on a set of quality measures for just over 400 hospitals.  Today, Hospital Compare reports on approximately 100 quality measures—including process, outcome, structural, survey, and efficiency measures—for more than 4,700 acute care, critical access, Veteran’s Administration, children’s hospitals, and hospital outpatient departments.

Lantana’s team includes subcontractors and incumbents, Health Services Advisory Group, Inc. (HSAG) and NORC at the University of Chicago (NORC). The team will manage measure implementation and public reporting for the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting, the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting, Hospital Value-Based Purchasing, Hospital Compare programs as well as data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). The team will perform data quality assurance, site user acceptance testing, and will track and respond to public inquiries and comments.

“Hospital Compare provides consumers with an excellent tool for comparing quality, outcomes, and patient satisfaction, and it drives hospitals to improve the care they provide,” said Rachel Singer, PhD, MPH, MPA, NORC, project co-principal investigator. 

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LANTANA CONSULTING GROUP
Lantana Consulting Group (lantanagroup.com) provides services and software to providers, vendors, and regulators for standards-based health information exchange. The company has led the development of over two dozen US and international healthcare data exchange standards, including the HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA), Consolidated CDA (C-CDA), HQMF (Healthcare Quality Measure Format) or “eMeasure”, and Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) standards—all cited as requirements for Stage 2 Meaningful Use of electronic health record (EHR) systems in the US. Lantana operates in a distributed environment, with more than 40 consultants, providing a cohesive and experienced core of interoperability experts.

NORC at the University of Chicago
NORC at the University of Chicago (norc.org) is an independent research organization headquartered in downtown Chicago with additional offices in the University of Chicago campus, the D.C. Metro area, Atlanta, Boston, and San Francisco. NORC also supports a nationwide field staff as well as international research operations. With clients throughout the world, NORC collaborates with government agencies, foundations, education institutions, nonprofit organizations, and businesses to provide data and analysis that support informed decision making in key areas including health, education, crime, justice, energy, security and the environment. NORC’s more than 70 years of leadership and experience in data collection, analysis, and dissemination—coupled with deep subject matter expertise—provides the foundation for effective solutions to issues confronting society.

HEALTH SERVICES ADVISORY GROUP
HSAG (hsag.com) was founded in 1979 as a Medicare peer review organization mandated by federal law and acting in only a portion of Arizona.  It now serves more than 20 percent of the Medicare population nationwide as a multi-state quality improvement organization (QIO). HSAG is also involved with Medicaid programs in more than a dozen states where it works to assure the quality, access, timeliness, and appropriateness of care for approximately 45 percent of the nation’s Medicaid recipients.  

CMS MIDS IDIQ: fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=1538e24c6e17ce62bbb0fe4d1e67937d&tab=core&_cview=1

CMS HOSPITAL COMPARE: medicare.gov/hospitalcompare