(NCQA: Washington) -- The National Committee for Quality Assurance recently announced the certification of eight leading software vendors for their Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS)-related software. Such software collects HEDIS-related data from health plan databases and calculates HEDIS results across some 57 measures of care and service, including the eligible population for the survey measures.

Using NCQA-certified software for HEDIS data collection, health plans save time and resources by forgoing the manual source code review portion of the HEDIS compliance audit.

NCQA-certified software undergoes a rigorous validation. Vendors process unique sets of test data using their HEDIS software product. The output is then compared to the expected results to determine whether the software computes HEDIS rates correctly. NCQA HEDIS software certification is awarded when 90 percent or more of the measures are confirmed, and certification is valid for one year.

The vendors receiving certification are:

• Catalyst Technologies Inc.

• DST Health Solutions

• Integration Management Inc.

• McKesson Health Solutions LLC

• MedAssurant Inc.

• Q Mark Inc.

• TIERMED SYSTEMS LLC

• ViPS Inc.

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