Practice Question of the Week: Quality Indicators

theories in Human Computer Interaction

Where Does this Fit Within the Core Content?

2. Clinical Decision Making and Care Process Improvement

2.1. Clinical Decision Support

2.1.1.  The nature and cognitive aspects of human decision making

2.1.2.  Decision science

2.1.3.  Application of clinical decision support

2.1.4.  Transformation of knowledge into clinical decision support tools

2.1.5.  Legal, ethical, and regulatory issues

2.1.6.  Quality and safety issues

2.1.7.  Supporting decisions for populations of patients

2.2. Evidence-based Patient Care

2.3 Clinical Workflow Analysis, Process Redesign,and Quality Improvement

What's a Quality Indicator?

quality indicators

Who develops these quality indicators?

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Question

Answer and Explanation

There are four quality indicator categories.
Prevention Quality IndicatorsInpatient Quality IndicatorsPatient Safety IndicatorsPediatric Quality Indicators
Below is an explanation and examples of each.

Prevention Quality Indicators (PQIs)

PQIs are a "set of measures that can be used with hospital inpatient discharge data to identify quality of care for "ambulatory care sensitive conditions." These are conditions for which good outpatient care can potentially prevent the need for hospitalization or for which early intervention can prevent complications or more severe disease. The PQIs are population based and adjusted for covariates."

Examples of PQIs include hypertension admission rate, dehydration admission rate, and lower extremity amputation among patients with diabetes rate.

Inpatient Quality Indicators (IQIs)

According to AHRQ, IQIs are a "set of measures that provide a perspective on hospital quality of care using hospital administrative data. These indicators reflect quality of care inside hospitals and include inpatient mortality for certain procedures and medical conditions; utilization of procedures for which there are questions of overuse, underuse, and misuse; and volume of procedures for which there is some evidence that a higher volume of procedures is associated with lower mortality."


 Examples of IQIs include abdominal aortic aneurism repair volume, acute stroke mortality rate, and pancreatic resection mortality rate.
Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs)

PSIs are a "set of indicators providing information on potential in hospital complications and adverse events following surgeries, procedures, and childbirth. The PSIs were developed after a comprehensive literature review, analysis of ICD-9-CM codes, review by a clinician panel, implementation of risk adjustment, and empirical analyses."

Examples of PSIs include postoperative Sepsis Rate, retained surgical item or un-retrieved device fragment rate, and transfusion reaction rate.
Pediatric Quality Indicators (PDIs)

PDIs are a "set of measures that can be used with hospital inpatient discharge data to provide a perspective on the quality of pediatric healthcare. Specifically, PDIs screen for problems that pediatric patients experience as a result of exposure to the healthcare system and that may be amenable to prevention by changes at the system or provider level."

Examples of PDIs include neonatal bloodstream infection rate, iatrogenic pneumothorax rate, and asthma admission rate.

As you can see, there isn't a quality or safety indicator for outpatient care. Therefore A is the correct answer.

Additional Resources

Clinical Informatics Board Review: Pass the Exam the First Time

learn.informaticspro.com

References and Suggested ReadingAHRQ Quality Indicators. http://www.qualityindicators.ahrq.gov/Modules/Default.aspx

Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. Chapter 45 AHRQ Quality Indicators. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2664/