Recruitment for HQI’s updated Hospital Quality Improvement Platform (HQIP) — a quality analytics system that consolidates disparate data sources into a single, statewide platform — is continuing, with an emphasis on reconnecting with those hospitals that had expressed interest prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The secure, web-based platform provides quality measures for conditions most affected by hospital quality initiatives. Through the platform, hospitals gain access to clinically rich, timely reports to help easily identify opportunities for improvement and areas for focus. It is free to all California Hospital Association (CHA) members, does not connect to your electronic health records system, and uses data that hospitals already report to the California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI), the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), and the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC).
Since launching in October 2019:
- 346 of 468 hospitals have seen a demo of the platform.
- 148 hospitals have executed agreements.*
- 136 hospitals have participation agreements under legal review.
*Note: The decrease from 154 last quarter was due to one medium-sized system ceasing membership in CHA and therefore becoming ineligible to participate.
NEW FEATURES AND UPDATES
- Starting with 2023 encounters, the Abstract Record Number (ARN) — if hospitals report them in the ARN data field — can be used to more easily identify cases in hospital local data systems for crosschecking the data shown in case views.
- Added “Reset to Default Filters” functionality.
- New Quality Transparency Dashboard Reports show historical-to-current hospital, state, and national measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Inpatient Quality Reporting Program. Some of these measures were previously part of HQI’s Quality Transparency Dashboards.
- Optimizations to the CMQCC Maternal Quality Measures report, including updated data.
- New Inland Empire Health Plan 2023 Pay for Performance (P4P) Program Report has been added to provide benchmark and performance data for the measures involved in the program.
- Added “Upload Only” user setting to allow a user to upload data, but not view reports.
If you have input about features and measures you would like to see, email our HQI technical team at HQIAnalytics@hqinstitute.org.
WHAT’S TO COME IN FUTURE UPDATES
HQI is looking to improve various reports, such as readmission and mortality, by adding measures for diagnosis- and procedure-specific rates that track the definitions used by CMS for the Inpatient Quality Reporting Program. HQI is also developing new reports around severe maternal mortality, pediatric quality measures, disparities in quality outcomes, and rural hospital quality and reporting measures.
For hospitals interested in participating, it can be done in three easy steps:
- Execute the cost-free HQI-Hospital Service Agreement and HQI-Hospital Business Associated Agreement.
- Follow the HCAI Patient-Level Administrative Data (SIERA) HQIP Upload Instructions to securely submit copies of recent HCAI Patient-Level Administrative Data for ED, ambulatory surgery, and inpatient encounters.
- Follow our NHSN HQIP Group Join Instructions to confer rights to HQI’s NHSN group on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Secure Access Management Services web portal.
More details about the platform, including features, quality measures, and options for benchmarking performance can be found on the HQIP web page. To schedule a 30-minute demo, visit the HQI website or email HQIAnalytics@HQInstitute.org.