Development of the Quality Data Collection Tool for Prospective Quality Assessment and Reporting in Palliative Care

Assessing and reporting the quality of care provided are increasingly important in palliative care, but we currently lack practical, efficient approaches for collection and reporting.

In response, the Global Palliative Care Quality Alliance ("Alliance") sought to create a Quality Data Collection Tool for Palliative Care (QDACT-PC).

We collaboratively and iteratively developed QDACT-PC, an electronic, point-of-care quality monitoring system for palliative care that supports prospective quality assessment and reporting in any clinical setting. QDACT-PC is the web-based data collection and reporting interface. Quality measures selected to be used in QDACT-PC were derived from a systematic review summarizing all published palliative care quality measure sets; Alliance clinical providers prioritized measures to be included in QDACT-PC to ensure maximal clinical relevance. Data elements and variables required to ascertain conformance to all selected quality measures were included in the QDACT-PC data dictionary. Whenever possible, variables collected in QDACT-PC align with validated surveys and/or nationally recognized common data elements. QDACT-PC data elements and software programmed business rules inform real-time assessments of conformance to selected quality measures. Data are deposited into a centralized registry for future analyses.

QDACT-PC can be used to report on >80% of all published palliative care quality measures and 100% of high-priority measure.

Electronic methods for collecting point-of-care quality monitoring data can be developed using collaborative partnerships between community and academic palliative care providers. Feasibility testing and creation of feedback reports are ongoing.