Information system concepts for quality measurement.

Area of Science:

• Health care informatics
• Information systems engineering
• Quality improvement science

Background:

• Current health care information systems often fail to meet performance data and reporting demands.
• Substantial improvements are needed to realize the potential of a national quality measurement and reporting system (NQMRS).
• A unified vision is crucial for advancing health care information systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To outline guiding principles for developing functional health care information systems.
• To present operational steps for creating effective health care data systems.
• To inform the development of a national quality measurement and reporting system (NQMRS).

Main Methods:

• Leveraged experience from developing information systems within a specific health care delivery system.
• Incorporated insights from discussions with the Strategic Framework Board.
• Integrated considerations for scaling a local system to a national data accumulation capability.

Main Results:

• Identified key elements for functional health care information systems: data collected once, anticipated data aggregation, addressed privacy/confidentiality, and inclusion of an audit standard.
• Outlined a seven-step process for the development of functional information systems.
• Emphasized the importance of these elements for a national quality measurement and reporting system (NQMRS).

Conclusions:

• A shared national measurement framework is essential for evolving health care data systems.
• A long-term vision is critical for guiding the growth of data systems.
• The NQMRS can serve as the guiding vision for health care information system development.