Glossary

Harmonization is the standardization of specifications for related measures with the same measure focus (for example, influenza immunization of patients in hospitals or nursing homes); related measures for the same target population (for example, eye exam and HbA1c for patients with diabetes); or definitions applicable to many measures (for example, age designation for children) so they are uniform or compatible, unless differences are justified (in other words, dictated by the evidence). The dimensions of harmonization can include numerator, denominator, exclusions, calculation, and data source and collection instructions. The extent of harmonization depends on the relationship of the measures, the evidence for the specific measure focus, and differences in data sources. Measure developers should harmonize value sets used in measures when the intended meaning is the same. Harmonization can also mean adoption of the same standard(s) for different purposes such as use of standards for electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) and clinical decision support (CDS), for example Clinical Quality Language for logic expression in eCQMs and CDS.

A health care consumer is an individual who uses the services of a health care provider including patients receiving medical care or treatment. IGI Global Services. (n.d). What is health consumer. Retrieved March 20, 2024, from https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/empirical-study-patient-willingness-use/33258

A health care organization is a purposefully designed, structured social system developed for the delivery of health care services by specialized workforces to defined communities, populations, or markets.

A health care payor is any payer of health care services other than the insured person, e.g., insurance company, Health Maintenance Organization, Preferred Provider Organization, or the federal government.

Health information technology (health IT) involves the processing, storage, and exchange of health information in an electronic environment. In the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, the term health information technology includes hardware, software, integrated technologies or related licenses, intellectual property, upgrades, or packaged solutions provided as services designed for or support the use by health care entities or patients for the electronic creation, maintenance, access, or exchange of health information.

The Office of the National Coordinator for the Health Information Technology (ONC) Certification Program is a voluntary certification program established by ONC to provide for the certification of health information technology. The program ensures that Certified Health Technology meets the technological capability, functionality, and security requirements adopted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The ONC develops the functional and conformance testing requirements for the testing and certification criteria related to electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs).

A health information technology (IT) developer/vendor is an entity that designs, develops, and/or markets health IT software application(s) for use in hospitals, ambulatory care settings, and/or specialty care delivery settings, e.g., electronic health record (EHR) developer, EHR vendor, quality reporting software developer, quality reporting software vendor.

Health Level Seven International is a standards-developing organization providing a framework and international standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information (including clinical and administrative data) to support clinical practice and the management, delivery, and evaluation of health services. These standards for transfer of data between health care software applications focus on the application layer, which is "layer 7" in the Open Systems Interconnection model (OSI model), a conceptual model characterizing and standardizing the communication functions of a telecommunication or computing system without regard to its underlying internal structure and technology.

Healthcare Service Location (HSLOC) is a classification of locations and settings where health care services are provided. HSLOC can be used to identify locations within a facility, such as the emergency department and medical intensive care unit.

This Health Level Seven International® (HL7®) Clinical Quality Language (CQL)-Health Quality Measure Format (HQMF) Implementation Guide (IG) defines an approach to using CQL with the Quality Data Model (QDM) and HQMF to define electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs). The IG describes the use of CQL to express the logic and the US Domain conceptual data model, QDM, to express the individual data types and their attributes for an eCQM detailed using the HQMF standard.

The Health Level Seven International® (HL7®) Quality Reporting Document Architecture Category I Implementation Guide (HL7 QRDA I IG) describes constraints on HL7's Clinical Document Architecture Release 2 (CDA R2) to create a QRDA I document. QRDA Category I is for reporting quality data at the individual patient level.

The Health Level Seven International® (HL7®) Quality Reporting Document Architecture Category III Implementation Guide (HL7 QRDA III IG) describes constraints on HL7's Clinical Document Architecture Release 2 (CDA R2) to create a QRDA III document. QRDA Category III is for reporting aggregated quality measure data and supports reporting for improvement activities and Promoting Interoperability measures.

The Hospital Quality Reporting (HQR) Secure Portal is the only CMS-approved website for secure communications and health care quality data exchange between quality improvement organizations, hospitals, physician offices, nursing homes, end-stage renal disease networks and facilities, and data vendors. It provides secure data exchange to and within various CMS quality reporting programs, including Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting, Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting, Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting, Prospective Payment System-Exempt Cancer Hospital Quality Reporting, Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality Reporting, and the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program.  

For hospital quality reporting, users must create a Health Care Quality Information Systems (HCQIS) Access Roles and Profile (HARP) account to log into HQR. Submitters can navigate within the HQR system and perform tasks based on the program data that are submitted, such as data submissions, data results, program reporting, and administration. For information on registering for a HARP account and additional resources, visit the Registering for HARP page on QualityNet. Please contact the Centers for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ) Service Center at (866) 299-8912 or QNetSupport@cms.hhs.gov for assistance.

Health Quality Measure Format (HQMF) is a Health Level Seven International® standards-based representation of a quality measure as an electronic document. A quality measure expressed in this way is referred to as an electronic clinical quality measure.

A hybrid measure is a quality measure using more than one source of data for measure calculation. Current hybrid measures use claims data and electronic clinical data from electronic health records to calculate measure results.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for creating web pages and web applications.