Achieving the Promise of Electronic Health Record-enabled Quality Measurement: a Measure Developer’s Perspective

Abstract

Electronic health record (EHR) systems support local quality improvement efforts by health care organizations and provide the opportunity to address national priority areas for quality measurement, such as specialty care, overuse and efficiency, coordination of care, change over time and patient- reported outcomes (PROs). However, variations in provider workflow and documentation habits, adoption of advanced EHR functions and exchange of interoperable data, and eMeasure specification standards affect the ability to develop and test measures that target these high priority areas for improvement. Measure developers are working with providers, national standards organizations, and other eMeasure stakeholders to address these challenges and support learning health organizations in using EHR-based measurement to improve quality