Creating nationally consistent performance measurement from a variety of electronically enriched sources to enable comparable health care performance

This grant supports an eight-month planning effort to promote the transition of national performance measurement from quality measures constructed using medical billing information (whether a test was done) to measures that use clinical information (the actual outcome of the test) from electronic health records and other sources. This planning will identify and disseminate best practices of data collection and aggregation to help with this transition. A large number of nationally endorsed performance measures that can use electronic clinical data sources are currently available; however, only a fraction of these measures are implemented consistently around the country. Further, the field does not yet have a nationwide, standardized clinical electronic infrastructure for efficiently producing measures. Therefore, building on the experience and capacity of local, electronically enabled measurement efforts, such as those in some Aligning Forces for Quality communities, will be a necessary transitional step. Deliverables will include: (1) identifying promising measurement sites; (2) establishing an initial set of performance measures for which data-collection and data-aggregation practices should be identified; (3) testing relevant data-collection and data-aggregation practices; (4) developing methods for finding the best implementation practices; (5) obtaining commitments from partner organizations to promote the identified practices; and (6) identifying sustainability options for these activities.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $399,288.00

Awarded on: 12/8/2009

Time frame: 1/1/2010 - 8/31/2010

Grant Number: 67252