Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a serious disease that places a heavy burden on affected patients and the healthcare system. Consequently, there are two Pharmacotherapy management measures related to COPD exacerbation for HEDIS Measurement Year 2020 (MY 2020).1 COPD is a group of lung conditions that include emphysema, chronic bronchitis and sometimes asthma. Symptoms of COPD include shortness of breath, cough and sputum production. Exposure to tobacco smoke or air pollutants usually damages the lungs and leads to COPD. Often, COPD patients develop breathing difficulties that become severely worse, known as exacerbations. Serious exacerbations can lead to hospitalization, decreased lung function and possibly death.

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) HEDIS® set of quality measures is considered by many to be the gold standard when it comes to quality measurement. NCQA continues to pursue a strategy to find a core set of meaningful measures that will allow for the harmonization of performance measurement across the healthcare industry. As such, NCQA will retire a number of measures, streamline and modify existing measures, and add a small number of meaningful measures for HEDIS Measurement Year 2020 (HEDIS MY 2020). This is the first in a four-part blog series in which we’ll be discussing these changes and sharing tips on understanding and incorporating them into your HEDIS strategy.