4 Critical Characteristics of Effective Quality Indicators Data

Hospitals and healthcare providers record, track and monitor data that spans everything from patient safety to prevention and in-patient care. But what do you do with all that data? How can it be used to improve patient outcomes and make a difference in healthcare costs? 

First, this quality indicator (QI) data must be easy to find, use and understand. Then it has to be effective.

Effective QI data must be:

Actionable

Hospitals need analytics tools that turn data points into decisions. For example, improvement professionals need to be able to identify the factors that contribute to adverse events and analyze the risk factors that are correlated to different outcomes to make effective mitigation decisions.

Timely

Currently, many hospitals rely on Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data for benchmarking purposes. But this data often has a two year lag, which makes it very difficult to link actions to outcomes. Hospitals need data as close to real time as possible to quickly determine whether quality improvements are having the intended effect, and make course corrections if they are not.

Accessible

Hospital leaders need to be able to access data when, where and how they need it – without sacrificing patient privacy or data security. Cloud-based analytical tools with appropriate security and role-based permissions allow each member of the quality improvement team to see and analyze the data relevant to their role.

Comparable

Benchmarking performance against peers allows improvement professionals to set appropriate goals and measure progress against them. For hospital networks and state associations, these comparisons also can be a catalyst for increased dialogue and sharing of best practices between members.

The Battelle WayFinder™ QI Dashboard is a data analytics and visualization tool that provides hospitals and hospital systems with needed quality indicator data.

Learn more about WayFinder and the importance of QI data in our new white paper: Delivering on the Promise of Hospital Quality Indicators.