U.S. health care costs continue to rise, while the quality of care delivered is worse than other nations; this has led to several decades of efforts around improving the quality and value of U.S healthcare. Historically, electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) have had logic encoded in the Quality Data Model (QDM). Clinical Quality Language (CQL) is a new HL7 standard for eCQM logic-expression replacing the QDM for 2019 eCQMs. Our objective was to assess interpretability of human-readable CQL-representations of eCQMs compared to QDM-representations, using a qualitative approach with a purposive sample of eCQM experts. We found that individuals may have differing preferences for models of logic-expression that delineate eCQM criteria, namely those around readability, temporal relations, logical operators, inclusion of encounter-types, and description of initial patient populations. While there are some potentially beneficial aspects of CQL specifications (e.g., temporal relations, readability, abstraction) the rapid shift from HQMF/QDM to CQL presents a paradigm shift in which further training materials, community forums, and examples may be required around CQL.