Quality Field Notes: Data Reporting

Quality Field Notes features key lessons learned by regional alliances of clinicians, patients, and payers in Aligning Forces for Quality communities as they work to transform local health care and provide models for national reform. The second topic in this series focuses on using performance measurement data to improve quality. Growing evidence suggests that physicians who publicly report their performance on quality of care standards are often motivated to use the performance data as a vehicle for self-improvement, ultimately resulting in better outcomes for patients. Transparency and collaboration are key to quality improvement. Public reports and quality improvement initiatives developed by regional health collaboratives have greater credibility and capacity to spur improvement.

 

Three case studies highlight lessons learned from three Aligning Forces for Quality communities:

 

In Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality found that public reporting led to better care for their patients. Practices who publicly reported their measures of quality showed improved performance, such as better cholesterol control and increased rates of breast cancer screening.

 

In Cincinnati, the Health Collaborative spurred improvements in diabetes care through public reporting of data. Some participating practices saw their scores vastly improve because of their increased awareness—and their desire to avoid lagging behind.

 

In Cleveland, Better Health Greater Cleveland analyzed data from its public reports to identify top-performing clinics so it could spread best practices.

 

Materials available on the RWJF site include a resource guide, case studies from AF4Q, an interview with Kathy Lehman, and a webinar on Putting Data to Work.