About this Self Paced Training

Digital Transitions Primer

The “Digital Transition Primer” course provides a comprehensive explanation of the current state and future state of the digital health ecosystem, and how NCQA aims to advance healthcare quality through digital transitions.

Course Modules

1. CMS’ Vision For the Transition to Digital Measurement
2. Digital Transformation: Exploring the Healthcare Landscape
3. Digital Health and Innovation
4. The Future of Digital Health
5. Digital Quality Transitions: Key Themes and Priorities

Module 1 of 5: CMS' Vision for the Transition to Digital Measurement

In this opening module, Peggy O’Kane, President, NCQA discusses CMS vision for the transition to digital measurement with Chief Medical Officer and Director of the Center of Clinical Standards & Quality of CMS, Dr. Lee Fleisher.

Learning Objectives

1.      Discuss CMS goals and expectations for digital measurement.

2.      Describe implications for industry transitions to digital measurement.

Module 2 of 5: The Future of Digital Health

In this module, Dr. David Brailer and Dr. Eric Schneider discuss the landscape of digital health and forecast how organizations need to position for success in the future.

Learning Objectives

1.      Define the future state of digital health.

2.      Identify key implications for transitioning to digital quality,

Module 3 of 5: Digital Transformation: Exploring the Healthcare Landscape

In this module, participants are equipped with a comprehensive explanation and implications for digital transformation from regulatory, strategic, and operational perspectives.

Learning Objectives

1.      Explain how historical events have led to the national call for digital transformation.

2.      Describe key gaps between the current and future state of digital transformation.

3.      Discuss regulations currently driving digital transformation.

4.      Describe characteristics of an entities that are prepared for digital transformation.

Module 4 of 5: Digital Health and Innovation

Through this module, industry experts identify and describe industry and policy implications surrounding the adoption of digital health.

Learning Objectives

1.      Explain the policy implications for digital health adoption.

2.      Explain challenges and needs for advancing digital adoption.

Module 5 of 5: Digital Quality Transitions: Key Theme and Priorities

This module provides a comprehensive overview of the main aspects and concepts stakeholders will need to understand as the industry, and specifically HEDIS, is transitioning to digital quality. The transition includes the switch to digital quality measures (dQMs) as well as changes in standards and rules, technologies, and frameworks. The transition is also very much a logistical effort requiring a phased approach to well-coordinated changeovers impacting many different stakeholders. To that end, the session will also provide an overview to the Digital Quality Transition Playbook, a key resource for every stakeholder in this transition.

Learning Objectives

1.      Describe digital quality transitions and what it means for different health care stakeholders.

2.      Assess resources to support digital transition for organizations.

Summary of Key Topics

• Authorization Technology for FHIR
•  CMS Blue Button
• CARIN Blue Button
• FHIR Datasets for NCQA and HEDIS
• Medicaid Population Management
• QI-Core
• The Patient Access API Mandate of 2020
• US Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI)

Who Should Participate

• Professionals involved in health care quality, data management, performance measurement, public policy, and population health management
• Health payers
• Medicaid service providers

Faculty

Margaret O'Kane

Margaret E. O’Kane is founder and President of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has received the Picker Institute Individual Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Patient-Centered Care, as well as the Gail L. Warden Leadership Excellence Award from the National Center for Healthcare Leadership.

Modern Healthcare magazine has named O’Kane one of the “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” 12 times, and one of the “Top 25 Women in Healthcare” 3 times. She is a board member of the Milbank Memorial Fund and the Institute for Exceptional Care. She is also a board member and former board chair of Healthwise, a nonprofit organization that helps people make better health decisions. O’Kane holds a master’s degree in health administration and planning from Johns Hopkins University, where she received the Distinguished Alumnus Award.

David Brailer, MD, PhD

David Brailer is an American physician recognized for his pioneering leadership in health care, particularly in the use of health information technology. Over the past three decades, Dr. Brailer has built a variety of private and public sector organizations that improve access to and quality of health care.

Dr. Brailer holds doctoral degrees in medicine and economics. He earned his M.D. from West Virginia University and his Ph.D. in economics from The Wharton School. He became board certified in internal medicine after his internship and residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he practiced infectious diseases and HIV medicine. Dr. Brailer was appointed a Charles A. Dana Fellow and a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Brailer taught for a decade at The Wharton School, where he founded the Wharton School health information technology program. Dr. Brailer is Vice Chairman of the Duke Margolis Health Policy Center.

Aneesh Chopra

Aneesh Chopra is the President of CareJourney, an open data service that helps providers, payers and pharma market leaders make smarter decisions in the move to value. He co-founded its parent company, Hunch Analytics, a “hatchery” incubating ideas that improve the productivity of health and education markets; served as the first U.S. Chief Technology Officer (’09-’12) and the fourth Virginia Secretary of Technology (’06-’09). His public service focused on better public/private collaboration as described in his 2014 book, "Innovative State: How New Technologies can Transform Government.”

In 2017, he joined the Board of the Health Care Cost Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit organization focused on complete, accurate, unbiased health care utilization and cost information. In 2015, he served as the inaugural Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School; in 2011, Modern Healthcare named him to its list of the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare; and in 2008, Government Technology magazine named him in as one of its top 25 "Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers.”

He earned his master's degree in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School in 1997 and his bachelor's degree from The Johns Hopkins University in 1994.

Lee Fleisher, MD

Lee A. Fleisher, MD, was named the Chief Medical Officer and Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in July 2020. In this capacity, he is responsible for executing all national clinical, quality, and safety standards for healthcare facilities and providers, as well as establishing coverage determinations for items and services that improve health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries. He is also Professor Emeritus and Former Chair of Anesthesiology and Critical Care and Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. From 2004 through July 2020, he was the Robert D. Dripps Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology and Critical Care and Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lee received his medical degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, from which he received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2011. He was Treasurer of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Finance Committee of the National Quality Forum. He was a member of the Care Transformation Forum (CTF) of the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (LAN) He is currently an Affiliated Faculty of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice and pursuing a master’s in law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. His is a Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. In 2007, he was elected to membership of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of Medicine) of the National Academy of Sciences and served on Committees of the NAM.

Michael Klotz

Michael Klotz is a Healthcare IT consultant, 3x entrepreneur, innovator, and seasoned executive. His current work is focused on healthcare interoperability and digital quality as they present unprecedented opportunity for improving healthcare operations for payer and provider organizations. Among several projects Michael has been working on, he is also a contributor to NCQA's Digital Quality Transition Playbook. Other work includes advising HIT vendors on product and M&A strategy as well as consulting with investors on industry and technology trends. Michael has been in Healthcare IT for 15 years, primarily in the areas of Payer Solutions. He has founded a SaaS platform company that streamlined and automated medical records reviews for quality and risk adjustment projects. In addition to his consulting clients, he also works with digital health startups as an advisor/contributor.

Before getting involved in healthcare, Michael worked as a consultant implementing large enterprise systems. In 2002 he founded a software consultancy focused on business process automation and business intelligence, which he sold in 2008. During that time, he also worked closely with Microsoft product divisions as an advisor. Michael grew up in Austria, where he obtained a degree in Electrical Engineering. He then came to the United States to get his business degree at USC.

Eric Schneider, MD

Eric Schneider, MD, M.Sc. leads NCQA’s measurement, research and contracting agenda as Executive Vice President of the Quality Measurement and Research Group. In this role, he helps drive NCQA’s efforts to create a more equitable health care system and to advance the move to digital quality measurement. Dr. Schneider came to NCQA from The Commonwealth Fund, where he was Senior Vice President for Policy and Research and a member of its executive management team. He has a long history with NCQA, most recently as Co-Chair of its Committee on Performance Measurement. He served on that committee for more than 10 years, including nine as Co-Chair.

Prior to his tenure at The Commonwealth Fund, Dr. Schneider was principal researcher at the RAND Corporation and held the RAND Distinguished Chair in Health Care Quality. As the first director of Rand’s Boston office, Schneider built its highly regarded multidisciplinary team of health services researchers. As a professor at the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School Eric taught health policy and practiced primary care internal medicine for 25 years.

Dr. Schneider trained in health services research, public health, and primary care general internal medicine. He holds a Bachelor of Science, cum laude, in biology from Columbia University and a Master of Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco. He is a member of the AcademyHealth Board of Directors and a fellow of both the American College of Physicians and the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Edward Yurcisin

Edward Yurcisin leads NCQA’s technology strategy and execution, helping advance continued digital innovation. As Chief Technology Officer, he is responsible for providing organization-wide leadership and direction across products and services, enterprise operations, IT infrastructure, and security. Ed is a proven technology leader with significant experience implementing technology and data solutions for health care payer and provider customers. Ed joined NCQA in 2022, after serving in C-level positions across leading health care and technology organizations, including Chief Technology Officer at Embedded Healthcare, Chief Product Officer at Onyx Technologies, Chief Data Officer at CareJourney, and Chief Information Officer at PeraHealth. Ed also led several initiatives to improve diversity, including developing a technical recruiting pipeline in Latin America.

Ed holds a BA in Economics with a focus on Econometrics and Quantitative Economics from Duke University.

Continuing Education

This live course grants 4.0 Continuing Education Unit (CEU) points for PCMH Certified Content Experts.  

* Please note – You must attend the entire program to be eligible for total number of contact hours.