Data Storyteller

This session taught participants about how to align data with clinical quality measures. Attendees learned how to connect CQM requirements necessary for clinical practice through quality improvement efforts.

Is your health center currently in the process of considering, implementing, or revamping a social needs screening program within your EHR or health IT system? Join this learning collaborative to learn about health center promising practices and key considerations to support the successful collection, monitoring, and addressing of social needs data. During the series, participants will explore the levels of maturity in the social needs screening implementation process. The levels of maturity include: 

• Level 1: Coming to Consensus
• Level 2: Implementing a Social Needs Screening Tool
• Level 3: Responding to Positive Screens
• Level 4: Monitoring and Using Data

Participants will gain information on concrete strategies and IT solutions that will help to improve internal systems, such as EHR utilization and care team workflows, and increase their capacity to advance individual and population-level health.  The HITEQ Center has partnered with the Louisiana Primary Care Association to design this series. Louisiana-based health centers will be showcased throughout the series to share their experiences with social needs screening, including successes, challenges, and lessons learned.

This simple Excel file dashboard was shared by an existing FQHC and is used to depict performance on UDS measures over time.

This can be used to communicate with staff or monitor performance on UDS measures, and can be modified for use with other measures. There is also a tab with some real world advice on creating and using basic data monitoring dashboards included on the first tab.

HealthNet’s successful use of Health IT to move metrics is highlighted in case studies focused on the value of leveraging IT to standardize care and improve patient outcomes. With the assistance of electronic health records and a variety of IT interventions, HealthNet has reduced low birth weights, improved care outcomes for pediatric patients, and significantly increased patient satisfaction.

Data visualizations in many forms can be incredibly valuable in helping health center staff and leadership move from a passive understanding of the data to active support of health IT enabled, data driven quality improvement approaches. While introducing visualizations can create immediate value and understanding, ensuring that their full value is realized requires that stakeholders be fully engaged and understand how visualizations (such as dashboards) can support decision making.