"CMS plans to start alignment and prioritization of quality measures in two major areas, patient safety and cardiovascular disease," said Goodrich.

In his keynote address, Dr. Farzad Mostashari, from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, spoke of the several years it's taken to implement electronic health records since the idea was first introduced, and said the solutions are coming soon.


"It's hard to change systems when systems resist change," said Mostashari. "But the good news is that we are now uniquely at a place where the pieces are coming together."

"By 2016, the provider who doesn't have an electronic health record will be rare," he added.

The participants divided into five separate breakout sessions, including Implementation Acute, Information Technology, and Clinical Data Analytics, and each group discussed problems, best practices and recommendations for improvements for their entities.

Dr. Shawn Griffin, chief quality and informatics officer for Memorial Hermann Physician Network in Houston, provided a summary of the breakout sessions and said some key conclusions were the need to educate clinicians and their staff on EHRs, to have transparency between measurement organizations and to provide users with better technology.

"Unfortunately, too many systems were developed by people in cubicles and not by those clinicians at bedside," Griffin said.

He added that he stresses to colleagues the importance of getting on board with EHR because it "touches everything."

"It touches the patients, the caregivers, even the clerk in the emergency room," he said. "We need to partner with everyone for input, the clinicians, vendors, and payers, and the NQF is in the unique position to bring these groups together and go forward."

The eMeasures Learning Collaborative will hold more meetings and webinars in the coming months. More information can be found on the National Quality Forum website at www.qualityform.org.

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