Examination of the Use of Electronic Health Record Data for Measuring Performance in Diabetes Care
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: There is enthusiasm among policymakers for the potential for electronic health record (EHR) systems to drive improvements in health care quality.The federal government has invested billions of dollars in an effort to expand EHR technology.This investment goes beyond the adoption of an EHR system.The government is providing incentives for healthcare providers to leverage EHR data for performance measurement.However, EHR data and this new application of EHR data are poorly understood.This study was designed to gain an understanding of EHR data and the validity of using it to measure performance in diabetes care.This was a two-part project.The first part consisted of interviews with 17 clinician users of an EHR system to learn how data is entered and processed in the EHR and to determine what factors influence data entry practices.During these interviews we collected data on how data entry practices impact performance measurement in diabetes care.The second part of this study analyzed data extracted from an EHR to assess the validity of eight different methods of identifying the target population for diabetes performance measures (i.e.patients with diabetes).The analysis assessed each of the methods for sensitivity and specificity, using a manual chart review as the gold standard.Next, we calculated performance on three diabetes measures (cholesterol, blood pressure, glucose control) to determine whether the method of identifying the target population was associated with the outcome of these performance measures.
Author: Annemarie G. Hirsch
Institution: The Ohio State University
Language: English
Subfield: Health Information Management
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W179929170