Creating Quality, April 2019, a new journal from NRI’s Performance and Quality Improvement Division. The first issue focuses on electronic health records. Editor: Lucille Schacht, PhD, CPHQ
The Electronic Health Record (EHR) continues to be a driver for operational changes and touts to be a more reliable source for performance measures. Why is inpatient psychiatric practice behind on adoption? Creating Quality, a new journal from NRI, addresses this question with in-depth analyses and practical review of the current status of EHR technology in psychiatric hospitals.
- The first article examines the status of using EHRs for transitions of care and where interoperability fits in this picture, using public use files from CMS.
- The second article explores the status of general uptake of EHR technology in state psychiatric hospitals using a survey conducted by NRI with the NASMHPD Medical Directors Council.
- The final article discusses the fundamental differences between abstraction and extraction of medical records to get to the nuggets that are used for performance measures.
The importance of clinicians’ involvement in building and refining systems that are the evidence of their work cannot be understated. It is re-connecting the data bytes to the context that is the vital step needed to inform the quality of care and engage the clinical staff in quality improvement.