This Joint Commission Guide for Data Entry of Chart-Abstracted Measures is not intended to repeat information that is contained within the Joint Commission’s Specifications Manual for Joint Commission National Quality Measures or the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting Specifications Manual. 

Refer to the above Specifications Manuals for, among other items, information concerning the initial patient population, sampling requirements, measure information forms, measure algorithms, patient-level data elements, ICD and medication code tables.

It is of primary importance that all organizations use the appropriate version of manuals for the submission period when identifying the initial population and sample size, collecting the required patient-level data, and processing it through the algorithm for each measure.  This will ensure that the data are standardized and comparable across organizations.

Timeline

The Chart-Abstracted Measure Specifications Manual is published every 6 months, typically February and August – usually during the first week of the month. Specification changes are documented in the Release Notes and may include updates to coding systems, clinical guidance, and measure logic. 

The manual published in August applies to encounters from January 1 through June 30.  (e.g., 2027A – the letter A corresponds to the first 6 months of the year)

The manual published in February applies to encounters from July 1 through December 31. (e.g., 2027B – the letter B corresponds to the last 6 months of the year) 

Continue to the next section: Chart-Abstracted Data Entry and Submission

Return to the Table of Contents