Innovation is incentivized through quality improvement outcomes and must be benchmarked, measured, and managed continuously. In this blog, we will examine the metrics, quality indicators, and strategic alignment of the data that is reported in hospitals and health systems today. Senior leaders and department level leaders are responsible for making sure that they align department and individual goals with the larger strategic plan and making sure that the people at all levels can see where their continuous improvement efforts align at the organizational level.
Today’s focus on value-based care includes a focus on increased data access and analytics. Data-driven decision-making offers key insights to inform patient care, quality performance, operations, and financial accountability. Consistency and data quality are critical for accurate reporting and trends.
Depth Metrics
- Layer impact analysis into existing KPIs (e.g., not just tracking reduced turnaround times, but measuring the resulting improvement in patient satisfaction and resource utilization)
- Document secondary benefits (e.g., how cross-training initiatives improve both staffing flexibility and employee satisfaction)
- Calculate long-term ROI projections for innovative initiatives
Quality Indicators
- Track both quantitative and qualitative improvements
- Structural measures include measurement of the provider’s capacity, systems, and processes in place that enable high-quality care. It may also include the ratio of providers to patience and the proportion of board-certified physicians.
- Measure impact on patient experience and outcomes
- Patient experience is multidimensional in nature and demands the use of emerging technologies. Metrics for this dimension include patients’ interactions, perceptions, affect, and outcomes.
- A combination of dynamic and multidimensional metrics is captured through surveys, online ratings, in-depth interviews, and direct communication.
- Outcome measures include the percentage of patients who died as result of surgery (surgical mortality rates), complications therein, or hospital-acquired infections.
- Monitor staff engagement and professional development
- Process measures include a percentage of people receiving preventative services like mammograms or immunizations along with the percentage of people with certain ongoing conditions who regularly test, monitor, and control their health.
- Assess sustainability of improvements
Strategic Alignment
- Link metrics to organizational goals and strategic initiatives
- Demonstrate how innovation supports broader institutional objectives
- Show alignment with industry benchmarks and best practices
- Determines if a measure is good and has been endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF) and assess if the measures have attributes that are appropriate for reporting purposes which includes the following criteria1:
- Standardization: The measures are standardized at the national level, which means that all health care providers will be reporting the same kind of data in the same way.
- Comparability: If appropriate, the results are adjusted for external factors that could make a health care organization’s performance appear better or worse than it really is; such factors include age, education, gender, income, and health status.
- Availability: Data will be available for most health care organizations that you are profiling.
- Timeliness: The results will be available in time for you to produce and distribute a report when it is most needed by consumers.
- Relevance: The measures address the concerns of your audience.
- Validity: The measures have been adequately tested to ensure that they consistently and accurately reflect the performance of health care organizations.
- Experience: Health care organizations have experience with these measures, so that you can be confident that the measure reflects actual performance and not shortcomings in information systems.
- Stability: The measures are not scheduled to be “retired,” e.g., removed from a measurement data set to make room for better measures.
- Evaluability: The results can be evaluated as either better or worse than other results, in contrast to descriptive information that merely shows how health care organizations may be different from each other. For example, a complication rate is an evaluable measure because we know that a lower rate is always better; in contrast, a Caesarian-section rate is not evaluable because we do not necessarily know whether a higher rate or a lower rate is desirable.
- Distinguishable: The measures reveal significant differences among health care organizations.
- Credibility: The measures are either audited or do not require an audit.
In order to improve decision-making and accountability, it is important to establish that the key metrics support your organizational goals and are trending favorably. As the year is ending, we will address planning and goals to include in your strategic plan in the third blog of this series. Stay tuned!
