Whether we like it or not, data-driven and value-based decision making is here to stay, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been one of the drivers of this change in healthcare. The new CMS Physician Quality Reporting Programs Strategic Vision will help them to evolve, making better use of data collected and adding value for their stakeholders.

The Strategic Vision describes how CMS will build upon current successes in quality measurement and public reporting, and it presents a future state for their programs to strive toward over the next several years. Constraints and requirements of existing PQRS are acknowledged, as is the role of measurement in moving provider payment from purely fee-for-service to models that reward providers based on the quality and cost of care.

The five statements below articulate the future state for CMS' quality reporting programs.

1. CMS quality reporting programs are guided by input from patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals. CMS will facilitate more timely feedback by increasing opportunities for input from stakeholders, including patients and families, using a variety of mechanisms.

2. Feedback and data drives rapid cycle quality improvement. Data will be enhanced through better use of health information technology and exchange. This will help ensure a future where technology provides seamless support to quality improvement efforts and also allows for more robust and timely performance feedback to providers.

3. Public reporting provides meaningful, transparent and actionable information. The Physician Compare website will be expanded to include quality-performance data on individual healthcare professionals and will increase the amount of meaningful, aggregate performance information at the level of group practice, health system or ACO. CMS envisions making performance data accessible to a variety of audiences, through partner websites or mobile apps, and facilitating automatic delivery of tailored information to the user's computer or mobile device in real time or at prescribed intervals.

4. Quality reporting programs rely on an aligned measure portfolio. The physician quality reporting programs will be dominated by patient-centered, outcome and longitudinal measures that reflect change in health status over time. An infrastructure that supports the capture of patient feedback via mobile or other secure technologies is also included.

5. Quality reporting and value-based purchasing program policies are aligned. Operational simplification and reducing the participation burden on healthcare professionals is desired and can be accomplished by the alignment of measures, code sets and reporting methods across physician reporting and value-based payment programs. That way providers can report data once, and it is used for multiple purposes.

This last statement seems to be in response to the long-standing complaints from physicians about quality reporting and incentive processes. The depth of their frustration may be best reflected by the 40 percent of physicians who say they would prefer to be fined, as required by the Affordable Care Act, than to comply with the confusing and time-consuming process.

These frustrated physicians need to participate in order to have increased transparency for both individual physicians, and collectively, for group practices and the medical staff of health systems and ACOs. Their participation also ensures that patients and caregivers have the most complete information available to select healthcare professionals participating in Medicare.

This Strategic Vision seems to indicate that CMS has been listening. It also seems to take us a few steps closer to the provision of more care that is person-centered and brings the kind of quality, access and coordinator that produces results.