Data Quality
Data Quality & Data Content Standards
Quality information is essential to all aspects of today's healthcare system, so improving the quality of data, information, and knowledge is paramount as we transition from paper to electronic health records. Many errors and adverse incidents in healthcare occur as a result of poor data and information. In addition to threatening patient safety, poor data quality increases healthcare costs and inhibits health information exchange, research, and performance measurement initiatives. Standards, technologies, education, and research are vital to capture, use, and maintain accurate healthcare data and facilitate healthcare’s electronic evolution.
Standards & Industry Activity
ONC - Office of the National Coordinator :
Quality Detailed Use Case
The Quality Use Case was one of four use cases developed in 2007. The use case focuses on the capabilities and functionality required to measure and report hospital and clinician quality and describes how health information technology can:
- provide the data needed for the development of quality measures,
- automate the measurement, feedback and reporting of a comprehensive and future set of quality measures,
- accelerate the use of clinical decision support (CDS) to improve performance on these quality measures, and
- how performance measures should align with the capabilities and limitations for HIT.
AHIC - American Health Information Community:
AHIC Quality Workgroup
The AHIC Quality Workgroup makes recommendations and sets priorities for how health information technology (IT) can be used for the development of quality measures useful for patients and others in the health care industry.
The workgroup’s meetings are open to the public which can be attended in person or webcast.
Additional information and meeting dates are available on the web.
Susan Postal, MBA, RHIA, Vice President of HIM at Health Corporation of America (HCA), is a member of the AHIC Quality Workgroup.
HITSP - Health Information Technology Standards Panel:
Quality Use Case Interoperability Specifications (2007)
The intent of the Quality Use Case Interoperability Specification is to provide a method to encode clinical data obtained during the routine practice of medicine and repurpose it as information to support quality measurement.
HL7 - Health Level Seven:
CIC - Clinical Interoperability Council–
This Council provides the standards development framework, organizational processes and forums to collaborate with the clinical community to define content, flow and other domain requirements necessary to the development of robust health data standards. The CIC provides a mechanism for clinical domains to develop common approaches to standards-related activities and form consensus on issues of interest among multiple groups. The CIC is unique to HL7 in that the focus is on the clinical content, not the technology of the standards.
SDTC - Structured Documents Technical Committee –
This Committee produces a comprehensive architecture to facilitate exchange and processing of electronic healthcare documents.
Two projects currently underway within the SDTC that may be of interest to AHIMA members include:
- CDA4CDT - Clinical Document Architecture for Common Document Types
A standards development initiative formed to establish interoperability specifications for common
types of clinical documents. The project is creatin implementation guides for the most common
types of dictated clinical documents. The guides use the HL7 Clinical Document Architecture
(CDA), the same framework used by the ASTM/HL7 Continuity of Care Document (CCD).
- QRDA - Quality Reporting Document Architecture
A standards development initiative formed to develop an electronic data standard for exchange of
patient-level quality measurement data between health care information systems.
The exploratory phase of the project was completed in fall 2007.
NQF - National Quality Forum:
The National Quality Forum (NQF) is a not-for-profit membership organization created to develop and implement a national strategy for health care quality measurement and reporting. The mission of the NQF is “to improve the quality of American healthcare by setting national priorities and goals for performance improvement, endorsing national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting on performance, and promoting the attainment of national goals through education and outreach programs.”
NQF engages in a variety of projects that support their mission to improve American healthcare through endorsement of consensus-based standards. These projects involve active participation of representatives from across the spectrum of healthcare stakeholders of which HIM professionals are involved.
NQF is coordinating efforts to endorse national voluntary consensus standards for selected
inpatient quality indicators for public reporting of quality performance.
A steering committee was formed to prioritize the areas for potential NQF endorsement within
the specified areas and recommend a set of measures in each of the areas based on the
analyses provided by relevant technical advisory panels, as well as make recommendations
about areas for further measurement development and research.
Margaret Foley, PhD, RHIA, CCS, Clinical Associate Professor, Temple University
Department of Health Information Management was appointed to this committee.
Evidence suggests that important structural processes, such as physician office and workflow
redesign, optimize the impact of health IT on reducing medical errors, reporting quality/
performance measurements, advancing patient education, and enhancing communication among
care providers. Agreement around the recommendations will be developed through NQF’s formal
Consensus Development Process (CDP). This project is guided by a Steering Committee.
Don Mon, PhD, AHIMA Director of Practice Leadership, was appointed to this committee.
Additional information is available on the web at:
Joint Commission
Performance Measurement Data Strategy Roundtable
The Performance Measurement Data Strategy Roundtable has been charged to frame the key issues and make recommendations for attaining a cohesive and efficient system for the collection, aggregation, maintenance and dissemination of performance measurement data from across the continuum of care that meets the needs of all stakeholders.
Linda Hyde, RHIA, Director of Research Operations and Epidemiology, Cardinal Health, and Crystal Kallem, RHIT, Director of Practice Leadership, AHIMA, participated in the roundtable discussions.
Other Resources and Links
AQA Alliance
The AQA Alliance is an initiative aimed at determining how to most effectively and efficiently improve performance measurement, data aggregation and reporting in the ambulatory care setting.
The mission of this effort is to:
“Improve health care quality and patient safety through a collaborative process in which key stakeholders agree on a strategy for measuring performance at the physician or group level; collecting and aggregating data in the least burdensome way; and reporting meaningful information to consumers, physicians and other stakeholders to inform choices and improve outcomes.”
HQA - Hospital Quality Alliance
The Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) is a national public-private collaboration to encourage hospitals to voluntarily collect and publicly report quality performance information in a consistent, standardized way. This effort is intended to make meaningful, relevant, and easily understood information about hospital performance accessible to the public and to inform and encourage efforts to improve quality.
Mission:
“The HQA facilitates continuous improvement in patient care through implementing measures that portray the quality, cost and value of hospital care; developing and using measure reporting in the nation’s hospitals; and sharing useful hospital performance information with the public.”
|
[ About AHIMA
| Schools/Jobs
| Professional Development
| HIM Resources
| Foundation
| Help
| Site Map
]
|
Copyright © 2008 by the American Health Information Management Association. All rights reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced, reprinted, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the association. |
|
All contents, including images and graphics, on this Web site are copyrighted by AHIMA unless otherwise noted. You must obtain permission to reproduce any information, graphics, or images from this site. Permission must also be obtained to link to any of AHIMA's Web sites. To request permission, fill out the AHIMA Permissions Request or contact permissions@ahima.org. |
| | 
Print page
