Information Systems: Case Study #1 – Missouri Hospital Association: Reducing the Burden of Public Reporting

 

July / September 2004

Information Systems


Case Study #1
Missouri Hospital Association: Reducing the Burden of Public Reporting

Between JCAHO’s Core Measures, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Seventh Scope of Work, state hospital association public reporting requirements, and NRMI (National Registry of Myocardial Information) and other performance improvement projects, healthcare organizations may face the need to collect the same data — albeit in different formats — several different times. The Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) developed a Web-based tool called “QualityWorks” to ease the burden of complying with various regulatory requirements and to ease participation in quality improvement registries.

The Web-based system allows healthcare organizations to collect the data required by the national and state programs in which they participate. They upload billing data, and the system evaluates how completely and correctly the uploaded data meet the data collection requirements for the chosen programs. Then it provides online data entry to add or correct data that was not already available electronically. As a result, healthcare organizations that are participating in, for example, a JCAHO-mandated program such as Core Measures can add a few data elements and also meet the requirements for the CMS Seventh Scope of Work and Missouri Hospital Association voluntary reporting initiatives.

Through the QualityWorks system, the Kansas City Metropolitan Health Care Council and the Missouri Hospital Association gather record-level performance data from their member organizations to build a regional and statewide comparative measurement database for the care of patients with heart attacks, heart failure, and pneumonia. MHA and the participating organizations gain feedback as to their performance in relation to peer organizations and drive quality improvement initiatives from the findings. The burden of participating in quality improvement initiatives beyond those mandated by JCAHO prevented many organizations from contributing. MHA has used information technology to reduce this burden by reducing or eliminating a huge portion of redundant data entry and manual report and graph generation.