Denver Health

Using Health Information Technology to Advance Performance Improvement

The Using Health Information Technology to Advance Performance Improvement initiative includes the development and implementation of web-based scorecards and dashboards that are made available to clinicians and leaders. A secondary goal of this initiative was to promote a culture of transparency in order to increase accountability at all levels for the quality and safety of patient care.

In 2010, Denver Heath launched a new electronic quality scorecard with more than 100 quality and safety measures trended over time. Every physician, advanced care practitioner, and leader has access to all but the most sensitive data in the scorecard. This effort capped 4 years of evolution of their quality scorecard which was manually updated using reports from each department and then sent via intercampus mail. Over the course of six months they converted the scorecard to an automated format and provided access through a centralized web portal for displaying current clinical and operational data. Features of the quality scorecard include: snapshot, colored performance indicators, prominent displays of each metric’s definition, denominator, target, and date of most recent measure; the ability to tailor the display of trended data, to drill down from enterprise to unit-specific performance, and to export data for analysis. Giving providers access to this data is key to motivating changes in processes to improve performance; for example, they have noted improvements in colon cancer screening, pediatric immunizations, and reductions in hemoglobin A1C for diabetic patients.