Provider dashboard helps Johns Hopkins measure individual performance

To assess the quality of its physicians, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine is turning to a data-driven provider dashboard.

The tool measures quality of performance of individual physicians, such as time of discharge, communication with the primary care provider and more, in real time based on how many days the physician was caring for the patient, according to an article from Healthcare Informatics based on a presentation held at the hospital about the dashboard.

Previously, it was difficult to measure quality individually, because a physician may perform the surgery but might not be the only one attending to the patient, Daniel Brotman, M.D., director of the hospitalist program at the hospital, said during the event.

With a tool that can take into account the time a physician spent with the patient, that's no longer an obstacle.

The hospital also was able to use the information from the dashboard to tie its annual bonuses to physician performance. In addition, the dashboard caused an uptick in compliance, the article said.

The University of Utah Health Sciences Center also used health IT to assess direct costs of patient care as part of quality improvement efforts. The facility pulled together a multidisciplinary project team to create a system of practical use with modular components that could be improved over time--and in six months.

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- here's the article