HJNO Sep/Oct 2024

44 SEP / OCT 2024 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS COLUMN MEDICAID Dana Lawson, DNP, MHA, MSN, APRN, CCM Senior Vice President of Population Health Clinical Operations and Health Equity Louisiana Healthcare Connections successful transition to this measurement platform will require partnership and active engagement on behalf of the pro- vider community. Establishing a strong, data-readiness foundation is critical to long-term transformation, but it goes be- yond data exchange. Health plans with a comprehensive data readiness strate- gy ensure data is usable and actionable, leading to improved health outcomes, and enhancing the overall healthcare ex- perience. Moreover, plans can confidently drive patient engagement initiatives and gain invaluable insights from performance metrics, operational analytics, and clini- cal informatics. 2 This arms organizations THE days of paper records and manual abstractions are steadily becoming relics of our healthcare management system. That’s because the evolving transition to digital platforms is now essential to de- livering care and expanding insights into health outcomes across all populations. In addition, the successful integration of elec- tronic health record (EHR) connectivity along with improved accuracy of provider coding plays a crucial role in meeting the standards set by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for quali- ty measures. Through NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS), standardized performance or outcome measures are used to assess and improve healthcare quality across various domains, including patient care, popula- tion health management, provider perfor- mance, and most recently, health equity. Since the initial introduction of electronic measures in 2018, NCQA has upped the ante with plans to release over 70 digital quality measures. With this comes the ex- pectation that health plans (and healthcare providers) will be intimately familiar with them by the year 2025 and configure their digital reporting infrastructure and be compliant by 2030. 1 This is a tremendous undertaking, and health plans cannot achieve this alone. The EHR CONNECTIVITY & PROVIDER CODING From the Stone Age to the Digital Age