2026 - Hospital Inpatient Hybrid

A hybrid measure is a quality measure that uses more than one source of data for measure calculation. Current hybrid measures use claims data and electronic clinical data from electronic health records. Hybrid measures merge electronic health record data elements with claims data to calculate measure results.

Each year, CMS makes updates to the hybrid measures adopted for reporting in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) program. Hybrid measures require updates to the electronic specifications and to claims-based specifications, available on QualityNet. CMS requires the use of updated electronic specifications for all its quality programs because they include updated codes, logic corrections, and clarifications. Reporting data for the hybrid measures to the Hospital IQR program requires that a hospital or electronic health record vendor use the most current version of the electronic measure specifications for the applicable reporting period.

CMS has updated the electronic specifications for the Hybrid Hospital-Wide Readmission (HWR) and the Hybrid Hospital-Wide Mortality (HWM) Measures for the reporting period from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 for the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program.

Submit questions related to the technical aspects of the hybrid measures to the ASTP/ONC Project Tracking System (Jira) Hybrid Measure Issue Tracker.

Across the eCQI Resource Center, for brevity, we use the term eCQM to encompass both eCQMs and hybrid measures unless specified in a filter.