The National Healthcare Safety Network's digital quality measures: CDC's automated measures for surveillance of patient safety

• Published in: Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA Vol. 31; no. 5; pp. 1199 - 1205
• Main Authors: Shehab, Nadine, Alschuler, Liora, McILvenna, Sean, Gonzaga, Zabrina, Laing, Andrew, deRoode, David, Dantes, Raymund B, Betz, Kristina, Zheng, Shuai, Abner, Sheila, Stutler, Elizabeth, Geimer, Rick, Benin, Andrea L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 19-04-2024
• Subjects: digital quality measure; fast healthcare interoperability resources; healthcare data exchange; medication safety; patient safety; National Healthcare Safety Network; automation; application programming interface; data modernization; healthcare-associated infections
• ISSN: 1067-5027; 1527-974X
• DOI: 10.1093/jamia/ocae064

This article presents the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)'s approach to automation for public health surveillance using digital quality measures (dQMs) via an open-source tool (NHSNLink) and piloting of this approach using real-world data in a newly established collaborative program (NHSNCoLab). The approach leverages Health Level Seven Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) application programming interfaces to improve data collection and reporting for public health and patient safety beginning with common, clinically significant, and preventable patient harms, such as medication-related hypoglycemia, healthcare facility-onset Clostridioides difficile infection, and healthcare-associated venous thromboembolism.
The NHSN's FHIR dQMs hold the promise of minimizing the burden of reporting, improving accuracy, quality, and validity of data collected by NHSN, and increasing speed and efficiency of public health surveillance.