Benefits to Stakeholders
The Collaborative pilot project and subsequent work demonstrates how providers can significantly enhance targeted QI efforts by using CDS/QI Worksheets to document, analyze, share and improve target-focused information flows and workflows. Benefits are amplified when the worksheets are used to improve collaboration between providers and their QI partners including EHR vendors, quality improvement organizations and others. The Collaborative's private site and discussion groups provide a forum for this collaboration for addressing shared QI stakeholder business imperatives.
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The Collaborative's value proposition for various inter-dependent QI stakeholders is summarized below.
- Care Delivery Organizations: Provider reimbursement is increasingly driven by safety quality, efficiency, cost and satisfaction measures. CDS interventions that effectively address the CDS 5 Rights are a powerful tool for improving these care outcomes. However, many CDS efforts yield problematic results (such as 'alert fatigue') and are unnecessarily time consuming, difficult and costly. Using the Collaborative's CDS/QI Worksheets and related tools to document, analyze, and share information about target-focused CDS strategies improves stakeholder communications and engagement, and CDS/QI strategic planning, implementation and collaboration.
- EHR and other HIT Vendors: Providers are increasingly demanding that information systems help them improve performance on key measures. Meaningful Use certification requirements (such as linking CDS interventions to clinical measures, and eventually better outcomes) further reinforce the HIT vendor imperative to ensure that their tools help providers 'get CDS right.' Target-focused dialog with many clients - informed by the CDS/QI Worksheets - can help HIT vendors ensure clients make best use of available functions, and help their product management teams develop more useful tools.
- Quality Improvement Organizations (e.g., RECs, QIOs, HCCNs): These organizations play an increasingly important role in helping providers achieve HIT-enabled improvements in care delivery and outcomes. The CDS/QI Resources from the ONC "CDS for MU" Project were developed in part to help these organizations rise to this challenge, and have proven beneficial to early adopters. The Collaborative project to improve BP control in a network of community health centers is an example of using these tools to 'move the needle' on priority measures.
- Payers: The CDS/QI Worksheets and Collaborative processes help provider organizations leverage CDS for performance improvement more efficiently and effectively, thus driving better care delivery and outcomes for payer dollars spent. Payers are also increasingly utilizing CDS approaches to optimize their costs and outcomes, and the Collaborative's CDS 5 Rights-based approach can make these PI activities more efficient and effective.
- Federal Agencies: Various federal agencies provide, pay for, inform and regulate care delivery. Each of these functions is enhanced by approaches - such as those used in the Collaborative - that ensure that the CDS 5 Rights are successfully accomplished on a widespread basis to achieve the healthcare 'triple aim' of better health, better healthcare and lower costs. (for more specific Federal Agency benefits, see pertinent pages for CDOs, Payers and Vendors)
- Foundations: For philanthropies with a focus on improving healthcare delivery and outcomes, the Collaborative can be a vehicle for identifying and spreading successful CDS-enabled performance improvement strategies. For example, Collaborative members are a rich source of innovative CDS approaches, and the Collaborative's tools (such as the CDS/QI Worksheets) provide a structured format for conveying effective performance improvement models in a way that that can be more easily replicated than from unstructured narrative alone.
- Pharmaceutical Companies: Many clinical performance improvement imperatives involve using specific medications more appropriately and safely. Pharmaceutical companies are a rich source of information and experience needed to accomplish this goal, and are increasingly investing in approaches to deliver this guidance to the point of decision making. The Collaborative's CDS/QI Resources - and target-focused dialog with other stakeholders - can help pharmaceutical companies optimize the appropriate use of their medications for clinical conditions of strong national focus.