HIMSS Unveils Quality Measurement For Health IT

The healthcare IT industry has its first international and quality measurement for value with HIMSS Value Score, which was unveiled by the Chicago-based organization last week. The Value Score builds off of HIMSS’ Value Suite and HIMSS Analytics’ Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) and is designed to help healthcare providers optimize and use IT to improve clinical and financial outcomes, and drive efficiencies in care.

“With the move towards value-based care, the international healthcare community can now look beyond initial adoption and toward a broader, all-encompassing way to measure the clinical and financial value of health IT,” said Stephen Lieber, President and CEO of HIMSS. “The Value Score is a combination of HIMSS’ core competencies and is the natural next step in the continual evolution towards better care and outcomes for patients and providers.”

HIMSS developed the guidelines for the Value Score and is currently refining the scoring algorithm across provider organizations in the U.S. and abroad, including HIMSS’ Davies Award winners and small critical access hospitals. The results for this initial pilot group will include actionable data sets and scores.

The Value Score is the latest in a number of standards and resources developed by HIMSS that have served as health IT adoption models during the past decade, including HIMSS Analytics’ EMRAM and the HIMSS Health IT Value Suite and Value STEPS.

“As the market continues to evolve, the Value Score will give providers a way to look at their entire organization and capture a 360-degree view of how they achieve value beyond the electronic health record,” the organization stated.