Quality reporting should focus on metrics showing better outcomes, CMOs say

Quality measurement reporting requirements increasingly consume resources that hospitals could direct toward better care, according to chief medical officers. Hospitals invest millions in quality infrastructure to track hundreds of quality measures and report performance to regulators, employers, payers, ratings organizations and consumers. CMOs say reporting, documentation and compliance have become end goals. Regulators should prioritize measures that are meaningful to patients, actionable for clinicians and capable of driving improvement instead of prioritizing measures to generate reports. Future iterations of quality improvement could require fewer measures, faster feedback and increasing focus on outcomes that matter to patients, they say.