Q2 Issue – July 1, 2026
RISE Exclusive
This issue includes updates from the RISE team, new research opportunities, and important information to help your practice prepare for current and upcoming CMS quality reporting requirements. You'll also find resources to support clinical care, including new lupus quality measures and a self-management guide for lupus nephritis.
In This Issue
Latest News
The Missing Link: How RISE’s Tokenized Data Fills Critical Gaps in Rheumatology Research
Webinar Recording: New Lupus Quality Measures Explained
QPP Corner
2025 MIPS Reporting Highlights
MIPS Value Pathways Registration Opens
2026 MIPS Exception Applications Open
Community & Research Opportunities
EmPower: Lupus Nephritis Self-Management Support Guide for Clinical Professionals
News from the RISE Team
We are making strong progress on the new RISE platform—with the majority of practices onboarded, dashboard testing underway, and new resources available. ACR staff are actively testing the new Quality Measure dashboard from IQVIA. That testing includes closely reviewing dashboard outputs, validating that the data is displaying as expected, identifying any discrepancies, and working through adjustments so the information is as accurate and reliable as possible. The new dashboards represent an exciting step forward, and I’m proud of the work that has gone into building a more useful, meaningful view of quality improvement.
To make sure your dashboard is complete and accurate when it becomes available, we need your help. Please have your Practice Administrator point of contact complete the billing survey and export your practice’s billing and/or practice management data file. We sent an email on June 12 with details to accomplish both tasks; please let us know if we can provide any assistance. These steps are essential to ensuring the dashboard correctly reflects your practice data and supports meaningful quality insights.
Dashboards will be made available to practices as soon as each one has been reviewed and validated. If you need help with the survey or with exporting your files, our team is here to assist you at rise@rheumatology.org.
To help your practice prepare, we have also developed several resources to support you as you get ready to use your new dashboard. These materials are designed to familiarize your team with what to expect before your dashboard goes live. Check them out now!
Thank you for participating in this important work – we sincerely appreciate the time and effort your practice is investing, and we look forward to continuing this work together.
Regards,
Tom Tack
Sr. Director, Registry
The Missing Link: How RISE’s Tokenized Data Fills Critical Gaps in Rheumatology Research
The ACR’s RISE (Rheumatology Informatics System for Effectiveness) registry now enables data linkages through tokenization, expanding how clinicians and investigators can understand patients with chronic conditions beyond what is captured during routine rheumatology clinic visits. Powered by advances in tokenization, deidentification, and data linkage, this capability allows disparate healthcare data sources to be connected securely while preserving patient privacy.
According to Jeffery Curtis, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and board certified in both rheumatology and clinical informatics this marks a major step forward for the field and for RISE. Long known for aggregating electronic health record (EHR) data from more than 1,000 rheumatologists, RISE can now offer researchers linked data that extends visibility beyond the registry’s traditional boundaries.
“RISE has a huge number of strengths as the world’s largest electronic health record (EHR)-enabled rheumatology registry,” Dr. Curtis explained. “But it only includes the data captured by rheumatologists recorded at routine rheumatology provider visits.” By offering tokenized data for research, RISE can broaden that view, enabling investigators to study critical aspects of patient care, such as visits to other specialists, hospitalizations, and medication adherence, that have historically been absent in RISE which has been limited to data recorded from rheumatology providers in their EHR.
Defining the Technology: Tokenization and Data Linkage
At the core of this capacity are two related concepts: tokenization and data linkage.
Data linkage refers to the process of connecting information from multiple healthcare systems, such as electronic medical records, insurance claims, pharmacy data, other registries, and other types of data (e.g., patient registries, lab data. information about social determinants of health) to create a more comprehensive patient record. As Dr. Curtis described, “data linkage enables understanding what is going on with patients beyond the confines of what gets recorded at rheumatology visits; it allows us to know what’s happening in the larger healthcare ecosystem.”
Tokenization, meanwhile, is a privacy-preserving mechanism that makes data linkages possible. It converts identifiable personal information, such as name, sex, and date of birth, into a unique, encrypted string that cannot be reverse engineered.
Dr. Curtis likened the process to a historical encryption system: “Tokenization is like the Enigma code machine used during World War 2; I take identifiable information about a patient, run it through an algorithm, and the algorithm turns that previously identifiable information into a long string of characters that cannot be linked back to the individual.”
Because multiple data systems can generate the same token using identical algorithms, datasets can be linked without sharing sensitive identifying details. “We can share those tokens, because they don’t doesn’t mean anything out of context,” Dr. Curtis said.
Filling Critical Data Gaps
The ability to link datasets can help address important gaps in rheumatology research and patient care.
One key gap has been visibility into care provided outside the rheumatologist’s office. “Did they see a pulmonologist, or a nephrologist? What did your patient’s primary care physician do?” Dr. Curtis asked. “You can’t know with rheumatology-only EHR data.”
Another major gap involves medication adherence. Physicians may prescribe treatments, but without pharmacy data, they cannot confirm whether prescriptions are filled or taken consistently. “Using only EHR data, I know about what was prescribed to the patient, but I don’t have the slightest idea whether the patient filled it once, 12 times, or maybe the patient never even picked it up,” Dr. Curtis noted. With linked pharmacy claims, however, “I know that patient received 30 days of prednisone on this day, and this day, and this day, each time that they refilled it.”
Other previously siloed outcomes include hospitalizations and mortality. “When you die, you don’t go back and see your rheumatologist,” Dr. Curtis said. Events like hospitalized heart attacks, infections, or fractures are not typically and systematically captured in specialty care records. “All of those gaps are only knowable with externally linked data.”
Broader Impact: Expansion and Increased Knowledge
As healthcare continues to become more data-driven, tokenization and data linkage represent a pivotal step forward, one that offers a more comprehensive way to understand rheumatic diseases and ultimately improve patient care.
To learn more about how you can make research discoveries with tokenized data, reach out to the ACR RISE team at RISE@rheumatology.org. or visit the RISE for Discovery page.
Disclosures: Jeffrey Curtis, MD, MPH
Honorarium / Consulting
AbbVie, Amgen, AQTUAL, BMS, GSK, Janssen, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Scipher, Sensimetrica, SetPoint, UCB
Research Grants
AbbVie, Amgen, AQTUAL, Boehringer Ingelheim, BMS, GSK, Janssen, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Scipher, SetPoint, UCB
Webinar Recording: New Lupus Quality Measures Explained
The ACR has introduced three new MIPS-reportable quality measures to help rheumatology practices track and improve lupus care—the first measures of their kind. Developed with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) support, they provide a framework for identifying care gaps, strengthening workflows, and supporting evidence-based care.
In a 30-minute webinar, measure leaders reviewed each metric, including hydroxychloroquine use, reducing prolonged glucocorticoid exposure, and capturing patient-reported physical function. The session also covered how to use RISE data and the implementation guide to support integration and reporting.
Watch the recording to learn how to apply these measures and improve care for patients with lupus.
QPP Corner
2025 MIPS Reporting Highlights
The RISE team extends a sincere thank you to all our 2025 MIPS reporters!
Check out the highlights, the top submitted measures and activities, and reporting outcomes from the 2025 MIPS submissions. This resource is designed to help you prepare for 2026 Traditional MIPS and/or Advancing Rheumatology Patient Care MVP.
2025 MIPS Reporting Highlights
MIPS Value Pathways Registration Opens
Registration for the Advancing Rheumatology Patient Care MVP opened in June!
To report this MVP for the 2026 performance year, you must register in advance. The MVP registration window is open until November 30, 2026.
As a reminder, the Advancing Rheumatology Patient Care MVP, created by the ACR and available through the RISE registry, offers rheumatology providers 10 reportable quality measures that are highly relevant to rheumatology. This MVP also offers a narrowed down list of 14 improvement activities that rheumatology experts have vetted, rather than the 100+ available through traditional MIPS.
2026 MIPS Exception Applications Open
CMS has opened both the MIPS Promoting Interoperability Performance Category Exception Application and the MIPS Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances Exception Application for 2026.
Exception applications close on December 31, 2026.
As a reminder, the MIPS Promoting Interoperability Performance Category Exception Application is available to support clinicians facing technological difficulties, removing that category from the QPP reporting requirements. The MIPS Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances Exception Application provides support for clinicians and practices facing rare and uncontrollable events.
Community & Research Opportunities
Note: Inclusion of a request or project description (below) is not an endorsement of the project and does not otherwise indicate approval from a clinical, ethical, or regulatory perspective by ACR. Participation in the opportunities and projects listed below can only be guaranteed for RISE practices.
EmPower: Lupus Nephritis Self-Management Support Guide for Clinical Professionals
Three strategies to help patients overcome barriers to self-management:
- Identify and discuss possible solutions with your patients. Helping your patients overcome barriers to self-management can empower patients. Talking through solutions when patients are not adhering to the treatment plan can help them feel more involved and accountable in their treatment.
- Increase effectiveness of patient conversations through open communication. Self-management support is a unique part of clinical healthcare that needs to be intentional and pre-planned for maximum effectiveness. Self-management support does not require long conversations with your patients. Rather, it involves having effective conversations in which you encourage and assist with goal setting and refer patients to available resources. This is best accomplished when encouraging open, honest, non-judgmental communication with your patients.
- Direct patients to resources tailored to their individual needs. After identifying barriers, you can direct your patients toward self-management resources to help them succeed.
Interested in participating? Contact us at rise@rheumatology.org.