HQMF - Health Quality Measure Format
Health Quality Measure Format (HQMF) is a standards-based representation of quality measures as electronic documents written in XML. Health Level Seven International® (HL7®), an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited standards development organization developed and maintains HQMF. An eCQM specification created using the CQL-based HQMF Implementation Guide provides measure details identifying and classifying the measure and provides important metadata about the measure. HQMF defines measure metadata and population structure. The metadata defined in the HQMF document header include descriptions of the measure populations, any stratifications, the measure steward, measure type, identifiers, rationale, scoring, references to articles, definitions of value sets and/or direct reference codes referenced in the body of the measure, and other details. The population structure contains a Population Criteria section and a Data Criteria section. The Population Criteria section defines the measure populations (e.g., denominator, numerator, exclusions, measure observation) and assigns their identifiers. The Data Criteria section defines the patient data of interest in the measure as a set of entries. Each entry identifies specific types of data along with constraints that the data must meet.
Find the CQL-based HQMF standard and Implementation Guide
The latest version of the CQL-based HQMF standard was published in March 2021. Download the latest version: CQL-based HQMF IG, STU 4.1.
The Clinical Quality Language (CQL)-based HQMF Implementation Guide is a Standard for Trial Use (STU) that provides information about how to use the HQMF standard to express a measure using CQL and the Quality Data Model (QDM).
- HL7 Version 3 Implementation Guide: CQL-based HQMF, Release 1, STU 4.1*
This IG version supports QDM 5.6. - HL7 Version 3 Implementation Guide: CQL-based HQMF, Release 1, STU 4*
This IG version supports QDM 5.5.
*You need a free HL7 account to access the individual STU documents at the CQL-based HQMF Implementation Guide hyperlink.
Find additional HQMF-related documents, case studies, and guides on the Health Level Seven International® (HL7® ) website.
Visit the eCQI Tools & Key Resources Library for a complete list of tools and resources used with eCQMs and eCQI.
Get Involved
Participate in an upcoming Health Level Seven International® (HL7®) Clinical Quality Information Workgroup call. This Workgroup creates and maintains HL7 standards supporting measuring, evaluating, and reporting of quality measure data.
Submit HQMF issues using the HL7 Jira Tracker.
Seek Help and Provide Feedback
Post technical questions and comments related to the development and implementation of CQL-based HQMF to the ONC Jira CQL Issue Tracker.