A patient-centered, symptom-focused qualified clinical data registry (QCDR) as a framework to guide quality improvement.

253 Background: Clinically meaningful quality measures have been identified as a catalyst for healthcare improvement and better patient outcomes. Amidst rapidly changing quality reporting and re-imbursement schema, eligible providers struggle to choose a portfolio of measures across multiple registries that will demonstrate the value of their practice to consumers and payers. It is critical that a roadmap to quality improvement be evident to registry users. Utilizing the Model for Improvement developed by the Associates in Process Improvement and adapted to health care by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a framework to guide performance improvement was developed and incorporated into an oncology specific QCDR for PQRS reporting.

METHODS: Fourteen patient-centered quality measures with a focus on cancer related symptom assessment and intervention were piloted and tested in 40 practices and incorporated into the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS)/CE City QCDR. Six measures focus on the active treatment phase of cancer care and eight on breast cancer survivorship. The registry platform was designed with capabilities for tracking of data over time, goal setting, benchmarking, and providing suggested performance improvement (PI) activities. A technical expert panel (TEP) was convened to develop a model to guide PI activities to address QCDR identified practice gaps.

RESULTS: A quality improvement framework was developed to help QCDR subscribers answer the question "How Do I Improve" and was incorporated into the ONS/CE City QCDR platform. This framework provides the subscriber with the education and training necessary to improve care through use of quality improvement tools and implementation strategies aimed at practice change.

CONCLUSIONS: It is essential that measures be incorporated into an infrastructure that provides opportunities for the assessment and improvement of care quality provided by practices. The QCDR can act as a means to drive performance improvement along with supporting quality measurement for PQRS and Meaningful Use reporting. The "How Do I Improve" Framework developed as part of the ONS/CE City QCDR platform provides a model to accomplish this goal.