Organizations involved in healthcare quality improvement and research for treatments and cures are increasingly developing capabilities to use data to advance their initiatives. Many organizations fall into the trap of focusing too much on the selection of tools for immediate projects, losing sight of where their data strategy needs to go. To truly move your organization forward you need to keep a mission-driven healthcare data strategy front and center. Put a strategy in place before you build your registry so you can ensure you’re able to meet your organization’s current analytics needs, while still having the flexibility to adjust to future uses.
This step may seem simple, but in order to select the right registry solutions, you need to clearly identify the objectives for not only your current initiatives, but the organization’s overall goal. For example, healthcare organizations have often focused on a QCDR-only approach for CMS reporting. This limits their registry’s potential and constrains their ability to meet new challenges and opportunities.
Start with defining the loftiest goals for your organization’s work. Think big and consider your larger goals. Evaluate and plan for new challenges and opportunities. From there, look at:
The single most important way to continue toward having a mission-driven healthcare strategy is having the tools to advance that mission, ensuring that your data sources can be used effectively to support your key goals now and in the future.
After conducting an assessment of your organization’s overall goals and current information needs—as well as the systems and structures available—it’s time to choose a registry platform. All projects and initiatives can change as you learn and goals evolve or expand, so it’s important to choose solutions that will support your mission over time.
There are some essential things to look for when choosing a health data platform that will grow with your organization. Make sure it can:
Your healthcare registry platform should be your most versatile—and most valuable—tool for empowering your mission and advancing the state of care in your specialty or patient community.
Although tools are critical to transforming raw data into easily-digestible information that supports your organization’s initiatives; tools (and systems) alone will not advance your mission.
Arguably one of the most obvious but overlooked steps to setting up a mission-driven data strategy is to develop teams that are solely focused on data, especially for smaller organizations new to deploying registries. Most young organizations struggle to scale up with the appropriate staff and analytical resources. By changing the macro environment, you are changing perceptions about the importance of transforming data into truly usable information. Information is now seen as an integral and important component of your organization’s strategy—feeding into your overall mission. Improving healthcare quality and patient outcomes requires trustworthy and actionable data. But no amount of data can substitute for the right vision and guidance. With your mission prominent in your planning, you’ll be able choose a good team and flexible platform for your healthcare improvement initiative.
See if you have the amount and quality of data you need for your initiative with our step-by-step guide