The rule, issued Aug. 1, solidified the following changes for 2024:
1. Under the Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience Guides, hospitals will have to affirm they have conducted annual self-assessments for all nine guidelines during the calendar year.
2. The definition of an “EHR reporting period for a payment adjustment year” will be defined as a minimum of any continuous 180-day period within the 2025 calendar year. The definition was also adjusted so hospitals that didn’t demonstrate meaningful EHR use for a prior year won’t be required to attest to meaningful use by Oct. 1 of the previous year, which will begin in 2025.
3. For objectives and measures in the program that don’t include a numerator and denominator, and unique patients or actions aren’t counted, CMS will modify response options to read “N/A (measure is Yes/No).”
4. CMS adopted three new electronic clinical quality measures for eligible hospitals to align with the Hospital IQR Program beginning in 2025, including:
- Hospital Harm — Pressure Injury
- Hospital Harm — Acute Kidney Injury
- Excessive Radiation Dose or Inadequate Image Quality for Diagnostic Computed Tomography (CT) in Adults (Hospital Level — Inpatient)
