Jennifer Hemler, PhD, ESCALATES Qualitative Team
Background
Many small primary care practices cannot access the data they need from their EHRs to assist them in performing data-driven quality improvement work that is required for CMS’ Quality Payment Program and other practice transformation initiatives. How can practice facilitators help them with this?
Useful Findings
We studied the strategies used by external practice facilitators to help the more than 1,500 practices in EvidenceNOW deal with incomplete, inaccurate, or missing data. These strategies included teaching practices how to:
- Use other data sources or tools to fill in for incomplete or missing data
- Improve documentation and measures of care received
- Obtain help from EHR vendors or health systems
The Bottom Line
While waiting for healthcare policymakers and EHR vendors to improve EHR capabilities, practice personnel and the facilitators working with them aren’t helpless. There are many things they can do together to overcome EHR problems and begin to engage in data-informed QI.
#VisualAbstract for this Paper
