HP Enterprise Services has been awarded a task order worth up to $26 million by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to maintain its Integrated Data Repository (IDR) and provide data quality services to improve the accuracy of Medicare payment data.

The task order is in support of the agency's administration of the Medicare and Medicaid electronic health records incentive programs created by the HITECH Act.

The IDR database provides CMS with critical Medicare claims, provider and plan data, as well as data services to be used by the National Level Repository (NLR). CMS will use the NLR data to make the Medicare incentive payment determinations for eligible healthcare professionals and hospitals under the EHR incentive programs.

As the NLR Data Quality contractor, HP will ensure that payment grade data is provided to the NLR by establishing data reconciliation, audits and reporting processes to validate IDR data. The agreement with HP will support CMS in administering a federally legislated incentive program.

To ensure the accuracy of IDR data, HP will:

• Provide quality analysis of data loaded into the IDR
• Maintain the existing production IDR database environment so it runs at expected performance and availability levels
• Provide CMS with guidance and recommendations on maintaining and improving data quality services.
• Create automated processes to ensure that all data feeds used to populate the IDR, as well as to support the NLR, are loaded accurately and on time
• Adhere to CMS database standards while establishing and performing database backup and recovery procedures
• Merge physical data models from separate repositories into a single, integrated data model

"To administer the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs, CMS must adopt even higher levels of data integrity to accurately make incentive payments to healthcare providers," said Dennis Stolkey, senior vice president, U.S. Public Sector, HP Enterprise Services. "HP will assist CMS in the maintenance, management and integration of large volumes of Medicare data as this important program moves forward."