QRDA - Quality Reporting Document Architecture

The CMS Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) Pre-Submission Validation Tools are software resources designed to help healthcare providers, health information technology (IT) vendors, and reporting organizations verify the accuracy and compliance of their electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) submissions before formally submitting them to CMS. By acting as a pre-submission check, these tools help ensure that eCQM QRDA files meet CMS standards, reducing errors, saving time, and supporting reliable quality reporting.

CMS-supported validation tools include:

• Cypress: Ensures accurate, standardized, and compliant eCQM reporting, reducing the risk of rejected submissions and improving data quality for CMS quality reporting programs. Cypress validates both QRDA Category I (patient-level) and Category III (aggregate-level) files for compliance.
• Hospital Quality Reporting System (HQR): Checks QRDA Category I (patient-level) files for adherence to CMS standards and Health Level Seven International® (HL7®) specifications. It provides reports and guidance to help hospitals identify and correct errors prior to submission.

Cypress is an open-source testing platform that health information technology (IT) vendors use to certify their electronic health records (EHRs) and certified health IT modules (CEHRT) for electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) calculations. It is an official testing tool within the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT Certification Program. As part of certification, Cypress generates synthetic patient data for selected published eCQMs and evaluates whether EHR systems and health IT modules can correctly capture, import, calculate, filter, and report those measures.

Cypress Validation Utility + Calculation Check (CVU+) enables real-world testing by allowing organizations to run tests using their own patient data. It supports validation against CMS Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) Implementation Guides (IGs) and performs eCQM calculations with highlighted measure logic. 

The Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) III Converter tool converts QRDA III files to the Quality Payment Program (QPP) JavaScript Object Notation format for QPP data submission. 

Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) Known Issues provide implementation information for QRDA Implementation Guides or supporting documents with known technical issues for which a solution is under development but may not be published. This includes issues such as discrepancies between conformance assertions and message text, non-critical conformance assertion errors, and typographical errors. A login is required.