What’s Coming
Beginning September 30, 2025, all California hospitals licensed as general acute, children’s, and acute psychiatric hospitals must submit to the state (HCAI) detailed equity reports containing two parts:
- Equity Report:
- 11 structural measures
- 2-9 stratified core quality measures across 9 variables (e.g., race/ethnicity, age, payor, language)
- Numerators, denominators, and rates for each core quality measure by stratification category
- 2,004 (GAC), 1,863 (APH), 484 (Children’s), 2,812 (System) data fields
- Equity Plan:
- Top 10 Disparities among stratified core measures
- A comprehensive health equity plan to prioritize and reduce the disparities including “population impact,” measurable objectives, and specific timeframes
- Describe performance across 6 priority areas (e.g., care coordination, access to care, etc.)
The Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) has released a measure submission guide with details on reporting requirements and formats, as well as a report template (download). For the full text of the bill establishing these requirements, visit the Legislature’s website. Implementing regulations are currently under review — so get started today!
HQI Can Help Hospitals Save Time & Money
Because hospitals that participate in HQIP already share these data, HQI can facilitate this reporting by:
- Providing an HCAI-compliant report in a ready-to-upload format (>95% complete)
- Integrating data from existing sources to avoid custom data pulls for your team
- Preparing core measures based on tested algorithms and integrating structural measures from CMS
- Stratifying by all variables possible based on the source data
- Building the pre-filled numerators, denominators, rates, and rate ratios
- Applying the required California HHS Data De-Identification Guidelines (DDG)
- Identifying your Top 10 Disparities and providing a template for the 10 fields hospitals must supply
- Creating the comma-separated variable (.csv) file formatted as required for upload to HCAI
- Accessing our expert support team to help with finalizing your report: hqianalytics@hqinstitute.org
Review the Summary Table of the measures and strata that HQI will populate for hospitals and systems.
Complete the AB 1204 Equity Reporting Contract
Learn more about the Hospital Quality Improvement Platform
More details are available in HQI’s flyer.
The reporting deadline is approaching quickly. Get more details and contact us now to reserve your spot. If you’re not a member of HQIP, now is the time to join!