Firely dQM |
The FHIR-native solution for
Digital Quality Measures
Execute CMS, HEDIS®, and custom quality measures directly on FHIR data
What are dQMs?
Digital Quality Measures (dQMs) are the next generation of quality reporting. Instead of manual chart abstraction and legacy formats, the measure is expressed in Clinical Quality Language (CQL), a standardized HL7 language for clinical logic, and executed directly against FHIR data.
Because CMS and NCQA now publish their measures directly in Clinical Quality Language (CQL), support for dQM has become the practical benchmark for demonstrating that a solution is genuinely compliant and market-ready.
Stop rebuilding what has already been written
What usually happens
- A measure specification becomes Python, SQL or a spreadsheet, and someone owns that translation forever.
- Every revision is weeks of development and QA. Per measure. Per system. Every cycle.
- Results land at year-end, months after anyone could have acted on them.
Explaining one surprising rate takes days of pulling records by hand, without pointing to the logic.
How Firely dQM works
- The measure runs as NCQA and CMS wrote it. No translation step, nothing to maintain between the specification and the result.
- New and revised measure content arrives ready to run through the measure year. Loading a release takes an afternoon, not a development cycle.
- Run measures on demand, while there is still time to improve a rate.
Trace any result back to the record and logic branch that produced it.
Why quality reporting is changing now
NCQA and CMS are moving quality measurement to the same place: measures published as computable logic, executed on clinical data. Different programs, different schedules, one destination.
HEDIS® – NCQA
MY2026 – Six new ECDS measures. Three moved to ECDS-only reporting; administrative and hybrid methods are no longer accepted for those.
MY2029 – NCQA’s stated aim is ECDS-only reporting for HEDIS measures. That is a change in which data you need, not just how you calculate it.
2030 – NCQA calls fully digital its north star.
CMS Measures
Today – CMS publishes its measures in CQL, and the FHIR-based eCQMs run on eCQM QI-Core.
Every cycle – Frequent measure updates, which is what makes an annual “big bang” implementation costly and brittle.
2030 – CMS has set the same all-digital goal for its own programs.
Neither program is switching off its current reporting route today. Traditional HEDIS reporting remains fully accepted, NCQA is explicit that the pace depends on market readiness, and CMS is phasing its own transition. So the question is not whether to move. It is whether your next measurement year is spent rebuilding measure logic again, or building it once.
What Firely dQM does
84 Digital HEDIS measures, every FHIR-based CMS eCQM, and your own custom measures, executed directly on your FHIR data.
Compliant without rebuilding
No redevelopment cycle. You validate the result, not the rebuild.
Real-time, continuous measurement
Run measures on demand, while there is still time to improve a rate.
Less manual work, lower cost
The published specification runs as-is. Chart abstraction stops recurring.
Accurate and explainable
Results come out as standard FHIR MeasureReports: the same evidence your submission and your auditor work from.
Which measures apply to you?
The direction of travel is the same for everyone: fully digital measures. However, the specifications, timelines and reporting requirements are not te same. HEDIS measures are specified by NCQA, while CMS measures follow their own eCQM specifications and regulatory schedule.
Measures for HEDIS
NCQA’s digital specifications requirements, HEDIS reporting changes, and what a parallel reporting year looks like.
For payers, delegated provider organizations, payer aggregators, EHRs and more.
Firely dQM feature overview
Firely dQM runs on Firely Server, operated entirely through standard FHIR APIs. No proprietary endpoints. A selection of what it does; the complete list is in the feature overview PDF.
Runs published measure sets
Digital HEDIS measures, every FHIR-based CMS eCQM, and measures you author yourself. On CQL 1.5.0 and the HL7 Quality Measure IG.
Measure content and terminology included
NCQA and CMS content comes with the product; Firely maintains the updates and resolves the value sets.
Reads your FHIR data where it sits
Firely Server’s own MongoDB or SQL Server store, any external FHIR server, or data supplied inline. No supplemental data files.
Ad-hoc or stored execution
Run CQL directly without a stored artifact, execute a published library, and evaluate a single patient or an entire population. Data requirements can be retrieved before a run.
Standards-based results
Individual, summary and subject-list FHIR MeasureReports, with proportion, cohort, ratio and mixed scoring.
Why organizations choose Firely for dQM
You run certified software
You do not build a measure implementation and then get it certified. You deploy a solution that already is.
We helped start FHIR
Firely is one of the initiators of FHIR and contributes to the standards today. Our team brings nearly 50 years of combined experience in quality measurement.
NCQA checks its own measures on our code
NCQA uses our .NET SDK to validate their own Digital HEDIS measures, and the CQL engine inside Firely dQM was built in collaboration with NCQA.
Runs on Firely Server
A production-grade FHIR platform proven at scale. Add dQM to a deployment you already have, or start fresh with our implementation team.
The ecosystem runs on our code
We authored the open-source Firely .NET SDK, which other vendors, hospitals and national programs build on independently of us.
Your data stays yours
Open standards, nothing proprietary, self-hosted in your cloud or on-premises. No PHI leaves your environment.
10 million+
downloads of the Firely .NET SDK
50 years
of experience in quality measurement
32,000+
commits to our open-source repositories
Want to see it run against your own data? Book a 30-minute call →
Want to know more about Digital Quality Measures?
USE CASE
HEDIS measures
See how FHIR and CQL can help health plans implement digital HEDIS measures, reuse measure logic across programs, and calculate results continuously.
dQM PRODUCT PACKAGE
Firely dQM Package
Explore Firely dQM, a FHIR-native solution for calculating CMS, HEDIS, and custom digital quality measures directly on
FHIR data.
RESOURCE
CQL for FHIR
Learn how CQL works with FHIR to enable clinical quality measurement, decision support, and digital quality measures
TRAINING
Implementing CQL-based quality measures
Get hands-on guidance on implementing FHIR and CQL-based quality measures.
Or take a look at our blog posts
Ready to run your quality measures on FHIR?
You don’t need to overhaul everything at once. Most teams start with a focused pilot, validate results, build confidence, and then scale.
In 30 minutes we will walk through which measures you report, where your data sits today, and what a first measurement year would look like for your team. No commitment.