Assessing and reporting the quality of care provided are increasingly important in palliative care, but we currently lack practical, efficient approaches for collection and reporting.
Objective:
In response, the Global Palliative Care Quality Alliance (“Alliance”) sought to create a Quality Data Collection Tool for Palliative Care (QDACT-PC).
Methods:
We collaboratively and iteratively developed QDACT-PC, an electronic, point-of-care quality monitoring system for palliative care that supports prospective quality assessment and reporting in any clinical setting. QDACT-PC is the web-based data collection and reporting interface. Quality measures selected to be used in QDACT-PC were derived from a systematic review summarizing all published palliative care quality measure sets; Alliance clinical providers prioritized measures to be included in QDACT-PC to ensure maximal clinical relevance. Data elements and variables required to ascertain conformance to all selected quality measures were included in the QDACT-PC data dictionary. Whenever possible, variables collected in QDACT-PC align with validated surveys and/or nationally recognized common data elements. QDACT–PC data elements and software programmed business rules inform real-time assessments of conformance to selected quality measures. Data are deposited into a centralized registry for future analyses.
Results:
QDACT-PC can be used to report on >80% of all published palliative care quality measures and 100% of high-priority measure.
Conclusion:
Electronic methods for collecting point-of-care quality monitoring data can be developed using collaborative partnerships between community and academic palliative care providers. Feasibility testing and creation of feedback reports are ongoing.
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