The Joint Commission has announced the recognition of five hospitals/healthcare systems as 2019 Pioneers in Quality Expert Contributors for their efforts to lead electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) knowledge and utilization.
Through eCQMs – which rely on structured, encoded data present in the electronic health record (EHR) – healthcare organizations electronically collect and transmit data on the quality of care patients receive. This data is analyzed to measure and improve care processes, performance and outcomes.
This year’s Expert Contributors are:
· Baptist Health, Jacksonville, FL
· Johns Hopkins Health System, Baltimore
· Memorial Hermann/QPSIC & ISD Enterprise Analytics, Houston
· HCA/Terre Haute Regional Hospital, Terre Haute, IN
· University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), Pittsburgh
“Their efforts have offered unique insight into eCQMs and health-information technology,” said David W. Baker, MD, MPH, FACP, Executive Vice President, Division of Health Care Quality Evaluation, The Joint Commission, in the statement. “We encourage other healthcare organizations to learn from these eCQM leaders to successfully use data to drive their quality improvement efforts.”
The Expert Contributors will present during an upcoming Pioneers in Quality 2019 Proven Practices webinar series hosted by The Joint Commission. The organizations will share their eCQM practices and successes with other hospitals and healthcare systems across the country:
· August 27, 11 a.m. CT: “Improving eCQM Accuracy to Drive Quality Improvement”
· September 12, 1 p.m. CT: “Moving from Retrospective to Concurrent eCQM Review to Streamline eCQM Accuracy Activities and Improve Results”
· September 24, 11 a.m. CT: “Proactive Hospital/Health System Engagement to Undertake eCQM Development and Testing”
The Expert Contributors also will be featured in the Pioneers in Quality 2019 Proven Practices Collection in November. The collection will detail the organizations’ proven practices, offering innovative ideas to help accredited hospitals overcome eCQM and health IT barriers and challenges by learning from the experiences of their peers. All initiatives in the collection are replicable and hospitals/healthcare systems are encouraged to tailor them to their individual organization’s performance measurement and quality improvement efforts.
