Purpose
This article provides an overview and description of the quality measures available in the General Radiology Improvement Database (GRID). Two main GRID measure categories include measures that report aggregate data for either the entire facility or individual radiologists and measures that report data for each exam.
Note: View a video about GRID measures that provides more details about GRID measures.
Facility and Physician Aggregate Measures
The aggregate measures about facility and physician performance were the first measures available in GRID and enable benchmarking and encourage quality improvement across different radiology services and activities. The measures are comprised of three different types.
Annual facility measures are reported per facility per year and describe facility performance related to, for example, rates of wrong exams performed and the number of falls that occur in the radiology department.
Process measures are reported monthly both per facility, e.g., patient wait time and time from order to the exam, and per facility and per physician, e.g., exam reacquisition rate and report turn-around times.
Note: An option to report Turn-around Time at the exam level is also available which includes submitting data about the exam modality, place of service, and the number of readers (See information under Exam Level Measures).
Outcome measures are reported per facility per month and include measures such as the rate of non-diagnostic liver biopsies and the rate of non-diagnostic lung biopsies.
The General Radiology Improvement Database Measures document provides a detailed description of the measures.
Exam-Level Measures
GRID turn-around time measures (exam-level) evaluate the time between the completion of the exam and the completion of the final report by the radiologist for six modalities.
GRID 2.0 Measures were added to GRID in 2020. The purpose of these 11 measures is largely to encourage appropriate follow-up imaging, final report documentation, and use of low-dose CT.
The GRID 2.0 Measure Details document provides a detailed description of these measures.
GRID Measures Included in the QCDR for MIPS Reporting
Some GRID exam-level measures are also available in ACR Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) used for CMS Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) program reporting by MIPS-eligible physicians.
GRID turn-around time measures and GRID 2.0 measures: These measures are described above under the Exam-Level Measures section.
Simplified GRID 2.0 measures: In this simplified approach, each GRID 2.0 measure includes a list of denominator codes and numerator performance codes which are populated into an Excel or text template and uploaded to the MIPS Participation Portal using the "Upload Data" tab.
The Simplified GRID 2.0 Measure Specifications document provided a detailed description of these measures.
Note: GRID registration is not required for users opting to submit using the simplified reporting method.
General Radiology Improvement Database Measures
Version: March 19, 2020
New GRID 2.0 Measure Details
Version: December 17, 2019