We came across a potential inconsistency when looking at the 2016 EH eCQM specifications. Last year, both CMS53v4 and CMS60v4 used the same temporal operators in 2nd AND statement of the Denominator Criteria. This year, the operators were updated “starts after start” to “starts during” but it does not appear like the change was made everywhere.
The difference occurs in the second “AND” clause of the second “OR” clause of the second “AND” clause of the denominator logic of each measure (the part that talks about defining “Occurrence A of Diagnostic Study, Performed: Electrocardiogram (ECG)” when there are no relevant Emergency Department visits).
In the second OR clause, measure CMS53 states the following:
• OR: First: "Occurrence A of Diagnostic Study, Performed: Electrocardiogram (ECG)" starts during Occurrence A of $EncounterInpatient
while measure CMS60 states the following (again, emphasis mine):
• OR: First: "Occurrence A of Diagnostic Study, Performed: Electrocardiogram (ECG)" starts after start of Occurrence A of $EncounterInpatient
All other areas of CMS60 were updated to use "starts during" (as was CMS53) but it appears last year's operator is still in-use in this one clause, which does not align with the rest of CMS60 or CMS53.
Change the temporal logic operator in the last line of the second "AND" clause of the CMS60v5 Denominator (second AND of the second OR of the second AND) from "Starts after start" to "starts during" to be consistent with other locations in the measure and so it matches CMS53v5.