News
Call for national data infrastructure in US to measure healthcare
performance
12 March 2008
The Joint Commission, the US accreditation body for healthcare
organisations, has called for a framework for a national performance
measurement system to improve the quality of American healthcare.
In a public policy white paper, Development
of a National Performance Measurement Data Strategy [1], it proposes a
national data highway to support the exchange of health information and
the use of information technology such as electronic medical records to
support performance measurement activities.
The commission says that most current performance measurement efforts operate in
isolation from one another, rarely provide a consistent picture of
overall quality, and represent a significant cost to the healthcare
industry. Healthcare organizations, practitioners, purchasers, oversight bodies and the
public, however, all rely on performance data to determine priority areas for
quality improvement, evaluate performance, and make informed healthcare
decisions.
The solutions, proposed by a special Joint Commission 'expert roundtable', focus on creating a data infrastructure that addresses
consumer expectations for data privacy, supporting a data highway that
allows for data sharing and linkages, and operating under an agreed-upon
set of rules and governance structure.
"The time has come to harness the many performance measurement
efforts by creating a data infrastructure so information can be shared
and translated into powerful tools for decision-making and improvement,"
says Dr Mark Chassin, President of the Joint Commission. "Although there are
significant challenges, the work of the Roundtable clearly shows that
this is a matter of will. We must invest the necessary resources and
engage in a collaborative effort to provide credible, accurate and
useful health care performance information."
The Joint Commission expert Roundtable offers 22 principles for the
development of a national performance measurement data strategy, and
identifies the following three broad strategies to guide national
performance measurement efforts:
- create the framework for a national performance measurement
system that meets the needs of all of the various users of, and
stakeholders in, performance data by standardizing measure
definitions and data collection processes to produce comparable
information. A national system for performance measurement data
should be assured through sustainable funding from private and
public-sector sources;
- build a data highway to support the exchange of health
information whose interoperability permits data exchange and
aggregation when warranted. Information technology systems, such as
electronic medical records, must be designed to support performance
measurement activities and relieve registered nurses and other
clinicians from the burden of manually paging through patient
records to obtain needed data; and
- engage stakeholders and engender trust by addressing concern over
the privacy of personal health information. Rules and principles must
effectively focus on data use, integrity and reporting. Significant
attention also must be paid to educating patients on the options and
risks inherent in data sharing, and the value of performance
measurement.
"The proposals put forth by the Roundtable aim to break down the
barriers to achieving a national strategy," says Dr Eric Larson, Roundtable co-chair and member of The Joint Commission's Board
of Commissioners. "With the explosion of performance measurement
efforts, the ability to share and merge data has become crucial to
developing consistent and true assessments of care."
Reference
1. The Joint Commission. Health Care at the Crossroads:
Development of a National Performance Measurement Data Strategy. The
Joint Commission, Illinois, 2008.
www.jointcommission.org/PublicPolicy/Perf_Data_Strategy.htm
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