This report examines the experiences of five provider organizations in developing, testing, and implementing quality-of-care indicators, based on data collected from their electronic health record (EHR) systems. HealthPartners used the EHR to compile blood pressure measurements, Park Nicollet Health Services developed a composite measure for care of people with diabetes, Billings Clinic tested an automatic alert on potential interactions between antibiotics and the anticoagulant warfarin, Kaiser Permanente used a natural-language processing tool for counseling about tobacco use, and Geisinger Health System explored ways of reconciling Problem Lists and provider-visit notes regarding high-impact chronic-disease diagnoses. Common themes emerged from these case studies. They included challenges--of ensuring the validity and reliability of data, efficient workflow, and staff support--but the providers' successes in implementing their respective EHR-based quality measures demonstrated that such measures are adaptable to different EHR systems, amenable to improvement, and worth pursuing.
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