CMS Quality Work
Lantana Consulting Group to Define Electronic Measures for Healthcare Quality
Lantana Group part of $13M CMS quality measure development and reevaluation, testing and validation contract
September 13, 2011 – Lantana Consulting Group is part of the team led by Abt Associates that received a $13 million government award to improve the measurement of the quality of clinical care in America. The new task order from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is to develop and express quality of care measures in electronic formats so that they can be reported to CMS directly from hospitals’ electronic health record (EHR) systems replacing manual systems and use of insurance claims data.
The ‘Development, Maintenance and Support of Clinical Quality Measures for ARRA HITECH’ task order requires the team to define already existing quality measures and to develop new ones suitable for programming by health information technology vendors and hospitals with certified EHR systems,” said Scott Royal, Ph.D., Abt’s division vice president for Domestic Health. “In this way, we are helping to lay the foundation for the meaningful use of EHRs.”
The task order supports the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which is a part of the larger American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The HITECH Act provides for incentive payments to hospitals and physicians to adopt EHR systems and use them to improve quality of care and patient health.
Over the three-year project, the team will create, test and evaluate electronic specifications for five new clinical quality measures and 100 existing clinical quality measures.
Lantana Group’s President and Chief Medical Officer, Bob Dolin, MD, will serve as the project Principal Investigator and will lead development of the project measure testing plan. Dr. Dolin and CEO, Liora Alschuler, are actively involved in developing standards-based electronic quality measures (eMeasures) and are co-editors of the HL7 Health Quality Measure Format and Clinical Document Architecture standards, which are the foundation for this work.
“Over 100 years ago, Lord Kelvin said that if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. With this project we can dramatically simplify the quality reporting process in the United States and achieve commensurate improvements in patient care,” said Dr. Dolin. “This project will have a direct impact in our national efforts to improve quality measurement, reporting and analysis.”
In addition to Abt and Lantana Group, other team members are the Health Services Advisory Group, Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality, Qualidigm and Stepwise Systems.
Lantana Consulting Group provides services and software for standards-based health information exchange. Lantana Group’s client list includes Fortune 100 companies and organizations in the public and private sectors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Cancer Institute and the National Quality Forum. dev.lantanagroup.com
Abt Associates is a mission-driven, global leader in research and program implementation in the fields of health, social and environmental policy, and international development. Known for its rigorous approach to solving complex challenges, Abt Associates was ranked as one of the top 25 global research firms in 2010. It was recognized as one of the top 40 development innovators in 2011. The company has multiple offices in the U.S. and program offices in nearly 40 countries. www.abtassociates.com
Contact:
Joy Kuhl, On behalf of Lantana Group, (818) 308-7063, joy@optimalaccords.com
Mary Maguire, Abt Associates, (301) 347-5859, mary_maguire@abtassoc.com
Sandy Cogan, Abt Associates, (301) 347-5913, sandy_cogan@abtassoc.com