Virginia Health Information Launches Interactive Dashboard Comparing Hospital Quality Data

Richmond, Va. – Starting October 2020, Virginia Health Information (VHI) publishes all Virginia hospital Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs), Inpatient Quality Indicators (IQI) and Prevention Quality Indicators (PQIs). The report is based on 2018 Virginia hospital patient level data (PLD) and allows consumers, providers and others to make comparisons of the data using an interactive Tableau dashboard available at www.vhi.org/qualityindicators. VHI had previously published quality indicator (QI) measures using a tool developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) called MONAHRQ. An important AHRQ update was to convert the system to the ICD-10-CM diagnosis coding system now utilized across the nation.

After a multi-year modification, AHRQ released an updated version of their quality indicators software that can be used to calculate key quality metrics on Virginia hospital discharge PLD. AHRQ QIs are standardized, evidence-based measures of healthcare quality that can be used to measure and track clinical performance and outcomes. “Our new dashboard will encompass over 15 area measures and 25 hospital-specific rates, all within a single webpage,” says VHI’s Senior Epidemiology Analyst, Jillian Capucao. All NCQA-endorsed QI rates are risk-adjusted using AHRQ’s published methodology and are assigned a rating in comparison to statewide averages. 

Users of the new tool can easily compare a wide variety of inpatient quality metrics by Virginia county, Health Planning Region or hospital and see how their rates trend over time. “Producing these quality dashboards in-house will enable VHI to streamline and expand our reporting on quality indicators which their use can play a vital role in nationwide health rankings and patient care decisions,” says Michael Lundberg, VHI’s CEO.