Two workgroups that advise the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology seek input to identify ways in which Meaningful Use Stage 3 may advance the consistent delivery of high quality care in diverse care settings. The committees recently hosted a meeting of experts from health care delivery organizations, quality improvement organizations, industry, and academia shared insights regarding how clinical decision support, quality measurement, and the use of clinical data can improve care. Those participants encouraged an increased focus on the dynamic ability to ask questions and get answers about patient populations, the use of clinical decision support as an “in-the-moment quality improvement” mechanism, and a transition from retrospective reporting to prospective identification of care improvement opportunities. To build on the ideas generated at the meeting the committees are seeking comments from a broader constituency. Specifically, the committees seek input on the following questions:
- How can we best leverage EHRs to support quality improvement (QI) and accelerate the QI work of providers and organizations under the meaningful use program?
- How can we improve the availability of “small data”— the data that providers and patients can use in real time to improve their decision making and improve quality?
- How do we build and deploy “plug and play” clinical quality and decision support functionality in EHRs and data systems?
- What types of measures foster accountability for care outcomes and concurrently support tactical quality improvement at the provider and organizational level?
- How can we use the meaningful use program to promote data liquidity and transparency across care settings and payors?
- How can we best leverage patient reported data to improve care?
The workgroups that hosted the meeting, Health IT Policy Committee’s Quality Measurement Workgroup and the Health IT Standards Committee’s Clinical Quality Workgroup, invite you to read the written testimony.
