Q3 Issue – September 30, 2026

In this issue of RISE Exclusive, get updates on the RISE registry and its new platform URL, see what’s planned for ACR Convergence 2026, and explore recent lupus and avacopan research. You’ll also find MIPS updates and a lupus nephritis resource for clinical professionals.

News from the RISE Team

The new RISE dashboards are available to RISE users, as announced in our recent email. We appreciate your patience and partnership as we continue improving the platform.

The Quality Measure Dashboard provides an overview of your performance across all 26 measures supported by the ACR RISE registry. The Analytics Dashboard lets you explore an individual measure in greater detail and identify potential improvement opportunities, while the Measure Drilldown tool provides patient-level insights into each measure.

We are currently piloting a natural language processing and artificial intelligence solution for clinical notes, which are key to accurate quality measure performance scores. We hope to launch this functionality later this fall and will share updates as the work progresses.

We intentionally released the dashboards ahead of this enhancement so practices could become familiar with the new platform. The new registry offers more capabilities than the previous platform, including the ability to view performance across all 26 quality measures.

We know that learning to navigate a new platform can take time, and we’re here to help. If you experience an issue or would like assistance using the dashboards, please email us at RISE@rheumatology.org.

Thank you for your continued participation and for helping us strengthen the RISE registry.

Regards,

Tom Tack
Sr. Director, Registry
American College of Rheumatology

The RISE Registry at ACR Convergence 2026

The RISE registry will be highly visible at ACR Convergence 2026, offering attendees multiple opportunities to learn how the registry supports quality reporting, practice improvement, and rheumatology research.

RISE will be featured in the Sunday session “Quality Payment Program Reporting for 2026 – The New RISE Registry QPP,” where attendees can learn more about navigating current reporting requirements and using RISE to support participation.

Research using RISE data will also be featured in numerous abstracts and posters, highlighting how real-world data from participating practices help advance the understanding of rheumatic diseases, patient outcomes, and care delivery.

Have questions about the registry, the new dashboards, or quality reporting? The RISE team will be at the RISE booth in the Exhibit Hall, adjacent to the ACR Hub, from Sunday through Tuesday. Please stop by to meet the team, ask questions, and learn more about available user resources.

We hope to see you in Orlando! Not registered for ACR Convergence yet?

See registration details >

ACR CDC Lupus Grant Extension Advances the RheumCode Initiative

The American College of Rheumatology recently received a grant extension from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This year 7 extension of this important grant includes the RheumCode initiative, a RHIT-authorized project that aims to standardize critical data elements for electronic health record (EHR) systems. As Thomas Grader-Beck, MD, RheumCode co-chair and associate professor of clinical medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, explains, “The goal of RheumCode is to rewrite our knowledge of rheumatology in a language that EHR systems can understand.”

Addressing the data problem

Rheumatology data are scattered across notes, laboratory reports, imaging, pathology, medication lists, patient-reported outcomes, joint counts, referrals, and problem lists. Much is not captured in a consistent, computable form.

Dr. Grader-Beck describes a core limitation: “EHR systems were primarily an initiative to simplify administrative billing purposes, so we know all about the financial aspects of patients, but we don’t know the clinical aspects equally well.”

The central RheumCode challenge is to determine where the relevant data reside, extract them, organize them, and synthesize them into information that is clinically recognizable and useful. RheumCode aims to define structured data elements while recognizing that essential rheumatology information also lives in unstructured sources, such as narrative notes, imaging reports, and pathology results.

CDC support enables ACR to join CodeX

The CDC grant allows the RheumCode workgroup to join CodeX, an accelerator within the HL7 organization, to complete the technical development for the project. This helps advance the development and implementation of these data standards across multiple EHR systems, including EPIC, NextGen, eClinicalWorks, and more.

The RheumCode team will work collaboratively with CodeX members and organizations to develop, test, and implement priority use cases in rheumatology.

What drives the work?

The goal is to make routine-care data easier to identify, organize, exchange, and use without increasing administrative burden. Standardized, structured data can support care, research, quality measurement, and assessment of disease activity and treatment response.

RheumCode seeks a common language for key rheumatology data across EHRs, supporting treat-to-target care, standardized outcome tracking, and better point-of-care decisions.

Dr. Grader-Beck says broad implementation requires perspectives beyond one platform: “We also need to hear from individuals who are knowledgeable about EHR systems other than EPIC, as those insights affect the adaptability and content changes that could be beneficial for broader implementation.”

Looking ahead

“We look forward to working with the CodeX community to address the core challenges facing rheumatology data: finding and extracting information that already exists, organizing it in clinically meaningful ways, ensuring it can work across different EHR systems, and doing so without introducing new pain points for clinicians,” says Aryeh Abeles, MD, adjunct professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and RheumCode volunteer.

RISE Data Highlight Avacopan Liver Safety and Monitoring Gaps

A new study analyzing RISE registry data offers active dashboard users a timely example of how information captured in routine care can surface medication-safety risks and monitoring gaps.

Published in Arthritis & Rheumatology and supported by a federal ASPIRE grant, the UCSF-led analysis included 238 patients with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) who had at least one recorded avacopan prescription from October 2021 through March 2025. The authors found 14 clinically significant liver-test elevations and two cases of drug-induced liver injury considered highly likely to be associated with avacopan; one case was severe.

Your RISE data support safer care

RISE is the nation’s largest electronic health record-enabled rheumatology registry, representing more than 4.4 million patients. Data contributed through participating practices help clinicians and researchers examine outcomes, identify care gaps, and study uncommon safety events across real-world populations.

Because RISE draws rheumatology-specific information directly from your electronic health records, it can show both what happened and how monitoring unfolded in routine care.

That breadth matters in rare diseases such as AAV and for uncommon adverse events that may be difficult to characterize in clinical trials. Large-scale registry data complement trial evidence by reflecting broader patient populations, treatment patterns, and practice-based monitoring.

Your participation makes this work possible. By keeping patient records complete and using the RISE dashboard to examine quality and safety, your practice contributes to a national learning system—and gains actionable insight for the patients you care for today.

QPP Corner

2025 MIPS Final Scores Released

On Monday, September 21, the CMS released all final scores for 2025 Traditional MIPS and MVP reporters. Check your final scores >

Concerned about the accuracy of your scores? The CMS offers a targeted review for providers who believe their scores may have been incorrectly calculated. The deadline to submit for a targeted review is Friday, November 20. Learn more >

2027 Proposed Rule Released

On July 14, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid released the 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) Proposed Rule, which includes potential changes made to the Quality Payment Program (QPP).

Key proposals include:

• CMS Proposes to Sunset Traditional MIPS by 2029
• CMS Proposes New Quality Measure Concept: Core Measures
• CMS Proposes Changes to the Promoting Interoperability Category
• CMS Continues to Accelerate the Transition to a Fully Digital Quality Reporting Environment Built on FHIR-Based Interoperability Standards

To learn more, check out the ACR’s article on the MPFS QPP Proposed Rule.

MIPS Value Pathways Registration is Open

Registration for the Advancing Rheumatology Patient Care MVP opened earlier this month!

To report this MVP for the 2026 performance year, you must register in advance. The MVP registration window is open until November 30, 2026. Learn more >

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.

Community Resources & 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

The American College of Rheumatology has created resources to help you provide self-management support to people living with lupus nephritis. These resources are available at lupusinitiative.org/selfcare. These may include resources focusing on self-management support, chronic disease self-management, and SLE self-management.