The platform doesn’t require any connection/interface to your EHR system. It uses discharge data already created and submitted by your hospital.
There are three data arms that feed into the platform:
1. HAI Data: Join HQI’s NHSN group via the CDC NHSN web portal. This takes the infection prevention coordinator at your hospital about five minutes. It will allow HQI to import and display for comparison your healthcare-associated infection (HAI) standardized infection ratios, and estimate your predicted quartile rank for our CMS Hospital Acquired Condition Reduction Program report.
This only needs to be done once and we can automatically populate those data quarterly moving forward.
HQI pulls NHSN data following the Reporting Requirements and Deadlines in NHSN per CMS Current & Proposed Rules for Acute Care Facilities that participate in CMS Hospital IQR Program:
2. Recent Discharge Data: Have your hospital upload the previous and current calendar year SIERA files that they’ve already submitted to HCAI . The upload is done securely and via encrypted SFTP transfer via the web application itself, probably by the person at the hospital that already generates the SIERA files for HCAI .
This initial upload takes about 30-60 minutes, and then less than 10 minutes to upload as your hospital generates these files moving forward.
As explained in the chart below, most hospitals have been uploading their SIERA files as they generate them for HCAI .
3. Historical Discharge Data: This is a legal requirement for us to provide historical discharge data for longitudinal comparison purposes. Your hospital will need to log on to HCAI’s Data Request Portal and complete a request for the statewide limited data sets of hospital discharges that they provide free of charge.
We provide a template of the data request form with what options to choose and the variable justification grids. Once HCAI completes the request, you’d upload the files in the web data system by secure and encrypted SFTP, just like the SIERA files.
You’ll need to do this when HCAI releases the newer files each year. Filling out the request is not hard, but can take HCAI six weeks or longer to fulfill.
HCAI Variable Justification Grids
Attach these forms to you HCAI request.