When trying to make educated decisions, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available online.
But one digital resource in Greater Cincinnati is drilling down healthcare quality metrics and creating a one-stop shop for healthcare consumers, providers and insurance payers.
The website Your Health Matters, developed in 2010 by the Health Collaborative in Cincinnati, is part of an effort to improve healthcare that began in 2007 through support from the national Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Bethesda Inc. in Cincinnati, said Mary Maune, project manager of consumer programs for the Health Collaborative.
The site — YourHealthMatters.org — includes a resource library; information on patient engagement; hospitals’ patient experience survey results from Press Ganey; and data submitted voluntarily by primary care physicians and ambulatory care centers.
About 600 primary care doctors from 172 practices in Greater Cincinnati voluntarily submit aggregated data on the quality of care received by patients with diabetes, high blood pressure, colon cancer and vascular diseases, said Dr. Barbara Tobias, medical director at the Health Collaborative.
“When we first started, doctors were leery and nervous to have the data publicly shared,” Maune said. “They had never looked at their data and compared it to peers.”
Tobias said the website allows users to compare the results from several hospitals or physicians at one time. There is four years’ worth of data featured on the site to illustrate improvements made over time.
“It’s not a ‘gotcha’ but a tool that enables us to improve,” Tobias said. “You can compare practices and how well they manage patients around accepted markers,” such as how well diabetic patients control blood sugar levels.
Raushanah Cole, of Cincinnati, said she has diabetes and uses the website to track the quality of diabetes care her doctor is providing, including important clinical tests, exams and advice.
“It explains it to me in a way I understand. You should search your doctor’s office to measure the quality of care of their patients compared to others in the area,” said Cole in a user testimony featured on Your Health Matters. “These measurable resources are facts. You are empowered as a patient. Your part is to use it.”
Cincinnati and Cleveland are the only Ohio communities to be alliance members of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Aligning Forces for Quality Care Initiative, said Anne Weiss, director for value in health and health care for the Foundation.
In 2005-06, the Foundation decided to make a 10-year, long-term investment in targeted communities in the U.S.
“To bring together people who give, get and pay for care to help them develop information on quality, cost and inequality of health care,” Weiss said.
There are 16 communities in the U.S. that were selected through a competitive process to receive portions of a $300 million pot of money dedicated by the Foundation for improving health and health care.
Those 16 communities, including Cincinnati, “stand out against the backdrop of the country,” Weiss said.
While each of the 16 communities took their own approach, each were required to develop a website for making quality metrics of physicians available to the public.
“Cincinnati is one that’s taken the initial effort and run with it,” Weiss said.
Since 2007, Cincinnati has gotten $4.3 million in grants from the Foundation to support its Aligning Forces for Quality Care efforts that encompass several programs. Those funds will run out this April but Weiss said the work will continue.
“The kind of change they’re trying to make isn’t easy,” Weiss said.
Weiss said Cincinnati stands out in many ways, including having an engaged corporate community with vested interest in improving the health care of its employees; a high concentration of patient-centered medical homes within primary care offices; and an early adoption of electronic medical records.
Tobias said since launching in 2010, the Your Health Matters site now records about 3,000 visitors per month.
Laura Randall, senior vice president of external affairs at the Health Collaborative, said the comparison of data from one physician practice to the next has been a “wake-up call” to some.
“This is truly the report card for the practice … not based on opinion but evidence-based factors,” Randall said.
Source: http://www.journal-news.com
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