Confirming the beliefs of quality and transparency advocacy, measuring the quality of collaborative care arrangements and publicly reporting it does improve overall patient care, according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund.
Researchers found that after tracking the collaborative care at Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality, diabetic patient care improved in every measure, reported the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel on Saturday. The Collaborative is made up of health systems and physician practices, who mostly all worked on electronic health records. With tracked data of more than two years, collaborative care showed to improve in all measures such as kidney function monitoring.
"These were changes that really impacted a lot of people," said Geoffrey Lamb, associate director of the Joint Quality Office of the Medical College of Wisconsin and Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee and leader of the study.
"The thing that really impressed me is the people who performed the lowest when they started had the greatest improvement," he said. "They cared where they were in ranking."
In addition, the study found that physicians were more likely to follow guidelines and contact patients who were due for tests if performance data was publicly reported.
"Transparency matters," said Christopher Queram, president and chief executive of the collaborative.
Even with more than 500 standards for tracking data and performance endorsed by the National Quality Forum, there are still some difficult behaviors to measure including the accuracy of diagnoses, surgical success rates, and the appropriateness of diagnostic tests and procedures, notes the article.
For more information:
- read the Milwaukee Journal article
- here's the study (.pdf)
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