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Post-DQS Analysis—dQM Adoption Priorities from Attendee Survey

In the Digital Quality Measures in Action: Current and Future (Digital Quality Summit 2021, Session 4, Track 2), Emily Morden and I surveyed the participants—about 250, representing payers, providers, policy and measure authors, vendors and consultants—on their understanding and adoption of dQMs and interoperability. We received 118 responses. 

The figure below shows the raw results to the question, “Which quality measure area do you think should be prioritized for greater use of standardized electronic clinical data?”  

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The first three categories took the lion’s share of votes. The results aren’t surprising, but they are still a useful guide to approaching the transition to an all-dQM HEDIS® program. We didn’t ask why responders favored one area over another, but I suggest it’s reasonable to offer an informed opinion on some aspects. 

For Current Hybrid Measures, it’s reasonable to assume that a big motivation for the votes is to eliminate the chart review process, which is disproportionately complex, labor-intensive and costly. But it will take time and planning to transition away from it. 

Preventative Care and Screening contains quite a few measures. This area’s many votes might reflect the facts that collecting clinical data is straightforward and that CIS, IMA and CCS were part of NCQA’s test measure release for MY 2021 in last year’s digital measure bundle. 

I don’t have a ready explanation for why Management of Chronic Conditions was so popular. I would certainly appreciate community feedback on this point.  

And we should keep asking questions, survey more broadly and ensure stakeholder input … to understand how to address key dQM pain points early while also informing the overall roadmap to all-dQM HEDIS. The DMC is a great platform for gathering more information and driving important dialogue on dQM adoption. 

Note: the next blog will provide some additional analysis of the vendor survey introduced in my previous blog as well as additional results from the audience polls from the Track 2 sessions at DQS 2021. 

Community Questions: 

· Do you have any additional suggestions on how to prioritize? 

· Do you have any additional suggestion on what measures or aspects of the digital transformation to prioritize? 

· Which measure groups/types are difficult to reliably generate data for? Why? How would you address this difficulty? 

Share your thoughts in the Community Forum.