Health Care Quality Assessment

NJ DOH (HCQA) uses research tools or modules developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to measure different aspects of quality of care in hospitals. HCQA applies these Quality Indicator (QI) tools to the New Jersey inpatient discharge (UB) data to come up with data that measure healthcare quality.  The data help hospital administrators and DOH to identify potential areas of concern that may need further investigation. The data also permits hospital administrators and DOH to track changes over time.

DOH uses 3 of AHRQ’s QIs:

Prevention Quality Indicators (PQIs) identify "ambulatory care sensitive conditions", which are conditions that can be effectively treated in an outpatient setting, potentially preventing the need for inpatient hospital admissions. PQIs can be used as a "screening tool" to flag potential health care problem areas and provide possible insight in to the sufficiency of primary care access or outpatient services in a community, help public health agencies.

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The Inpatient Quality Indicators (IQIs) provide information on inpatient mortality for certain procedures and medical conditions; utilization of selected 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. The data can be used to compare hospitals’ performance in outcomes (mortality rate), utilization, and volume.

NJ DOH (HCQI) posts mortality data on certain conditions on the Hospital Performance Report web site. IQI data is not reported in the hard copy of the Hospital Performance Report. The mortality, utilization and volume is, however, included in the NJ IQI report.

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The Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) provide information on potential in hospital complications and adverse events following surgeries, procedures, and childbirth. PSIs can be used to help hospitals identify potential adverse events and assess the incidence of adverse events and in hospital complications.

NJ DOH (HCQA) posts PSI data on 12 conditions on the Hospital Performance Report web site.

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