Primary Care Practices' Abilities And Challenges In Using Electronic Health Record Data For Quality Improvement

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Healthcare Quality Improvement
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Federal value-based payment programs mandate quality improvement (QI) activities in primary care.
• Electronic health records (EHRs) are expected to provide clinical quality measure (CQM) reports to guide these QI efforts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the adequacy of EHR-generated CQM reports for supporting practice-based QI activities.
• To identify challenges primary care practices encounter when using EHR reports for quality improvement.

Main Methods:

• Survey responses from 1,492 primary care practices across twelve states were analyzed.
• Qualitative data supplemented the survey findings to provide deeper insights into practice experiences.

Main Results:

• Participation in Meaningful Use programs correlated with the ability to generate reports, but not necessarily with their utility for QI.
• Practices reported significant challenges including data manipulation difficulties, limited reporting functionality, measure-guideline discordance, data quality issues, and unreceptive EHR vendors.

Conclusions:

• Current EHR measurement functionalities may be insufficient to meet the demands of federal value-based payment initiatives.
• Improvements in EHR reporting capabilities and vendor responsiveness are needed to effectively support clinical quality measure-based payment programs.