Leveraging an HIE to Scale Quality Improvement Programs for Chronic Disease and Advance Health Equity

The evidence is clear that minority and underserved populations suffer disproportionately from chronic disease and experience worse outcomes with the care that they do receive. While most health care providers appreciate the impact that social determinants of health have on their patients, data highlighting social needs and measuring disparities are not consistently incorporated into quality improvement interventions or value-based care models. Barriers include the administrative burden of capturing and integrating the relevant data on a timely basis to enable the QI process, as well as stakeholder reluctance to share more comprehensive data sets that are needed to measure outcomes. A multi-stakeholder group of payers, providers, community-care hubs, and a Health Information Network (MiHIN) have launched a project that involves developing statewide collaborative quality improvement programs targeting key chronic diseases with an emphasis on addressing health disparities. We will highlight an approach to establish data sharing infrastructure to accelerate quality improvement, reduce provider burden, and incorporate a health equity focus into the QI process by leveraging the services of an HIE.