News: CMS launches new tool to aid facilities’ awareness of quality measures

Last week, Kate Goodrich, MD, director, CMS Center for Clinical Standards and Quality & CMS Chief Medical Officer, announced a new resource to help raise providers’ awareness of CMS’ quality measures. The CMS Measures Inventory Tool (CMIT) is an interactive web-based application that contains the same information as the Excel spreadsheets of quality measures available on the CMS website, presented in a user-friendly manner to allow providers to search and find measures quickly and identify related measures.

In addition to the measures currently in play, the tool also includes all the measures currently under development and those that have been removed from use. The CMIT lists each measure by program, dates of measure consideration and implementation, and measure specifications, according to the announcement on the CMS Blog.

The CMIT will be updated every February, July, and November, according to the CMS website. Any changes taking place after a scheduled update will not be reflected until the next scheduled update.

Though the CMIT was created to raise providers’ awareness of quality measures and increase transparency, anyone may access the tool—no account is necessary. Because of this, the tool could also be of great service to CDI professionals reviewing for quality. The CMS website can be difficult to navigate and search; the new tool puts the relevant information at CDI specialists’ fingertips.

Editor’s note: To read the CMIT announcement on the CMS Blog, click here. To read the full details of the tool, click here. To view the tool yourself, click here.