Quality Quarterly

Hospital Quality Improvement Platform Enrollment Continues To Grow

Use of HQI’s new Hospital Quality Improvement Platform — a quality analytics system that consolidates disparate data sources into a single, statewide platform — has increased since the last quarter. The platform is free to all California Hospital Association (CHA) members.  

Since launching in October 2019, 275 of 340 adult acute care CHA member hospitals have seen a demo of the platform. Of those, 53 have executed agreements and 175 have participation agreements under legal review to join.  

The secure, web-based platform provides risk-adjusted 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. The free platform is web-based, does not connect to your electronic health records system, and uses data you already report to the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) and the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).  

Platform features  include:

  • Access to hospital performance data from various sources, integrated into a centralized platform.  
  • Tools to understand your hospital’s quality performance and compare standardized measures to statewide benchmarks and peers.  
  • The ability to explore same-year quality performance for your hospital, rather than waiting eight to 20 months for statewide files to be released.  
  • An intuitive interface that provides a window into inpatient and emergency quality indicators.    
  • Secure data within HIPAA-qualified encrypted data systems.  

Quality measures  include:

  • Inpatient episode quality and efficiency 
  • Readmissions (3, 7, 14, 30 day) 
  • Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) 
  • Case mix demographics, comorbidities, index 
  • Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services hospital-acquired conditions (DRA HAC and HACRP) 
  • Cancer surgery volumes 
  • Emergency department (ED) discharge analytics (comorbidities, volume, demographics, revisits) 
  • Adverse drug events (anticoagulants, glycemic control, and opioids) 
  • Hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) 
  • Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ) patient safety indicators 
  • AHRQ inpatient quality indicators  
  • Sepsis incidence and mortality 
  • Maternity measures 
  • Mortality/serious complications/reoperations/length of stay/discharge disposition 
  • Nursing-sensitive measures 

The Hospital Quality Improvement Platform gives you 15 options for benchmarking your hospital’s performance: 

  • All California hospitals 
  • Other critical access hospitals 
  • Other children’s hospitals 
  • Your hospital’s past performance 
  • Other California hospitals: 
    • In the same health system 
    • In the same region
    • In the same metropolitan statistical area
    • With similar bed size
    • With similar rurality/urbanity
    • With the same type of control (e.g., non-profit)
    • With the same license type
    • With similar Medicare payer mix
    • With similar Medi-Cal payer mix
    • With the same trauma level designation
    • With similar inpatient discharge volume
    • With same ED type
    • With similar ED volume 

For hospitals interested in participating, it can be done in three easy steps:  

  1. Execute cost-free Business Associated Agreement & Master Service Agreement.  
  2. Securely submit copies of MIRCal/OSHPD emergency department, ambulatory surgery, and inpatient discharge data files.  
  3. Join HQI’s NHSN group.  

For more information about the Hospital Quality Improvement Platform or to schedule a demo, click here or email HQIAnalytics@HQInstitute.org.