NCCHC News

Get in Tune With CHORDS

Although measurement underlies quality improvement efforts within facilities, it does not enable examination of performance on a large scale, in comparison with peers. For that, benchmarking is essential. Such benchmarking is commonplace in community-based hospitals and health networks, which rely on these data not only for quality improvement but also to satisfy payor requirements.

To date, however, the correctional health care field has done very little benchmarking of health care performance, although it could greatly enhance quality and effectiveness of care. This is due, in part, to a lack of robust, uniform performance measures tailored to the unique correctional setting, as well as the absence of a way for facilities to share data.

These major obstacles will soon be a thing of the past. Building on a chronic disease data reporting program it initiated several years ago, NCCHC is now working with leaders of a variety of correctional systems throughout the country to establish a national performance measurement system called CHORDS (Correctional Health Outcome and Resource Data Set). Broadly speaking, CHORDS will consist of the following elements:

• Standardized performance measures, with an emphasis on effectiveness of care, availability of and access to care, use of services, cost of care and others
• A data repository to establish regional and national benchmarks for participants
• Data reporting capabilities to help correctional systems track, trend and compare data over time

This important effort has the potential to impel quality improvement in correctional institutions across the nation and, ultimately, benefit the public health. Stay tuned for updates as the project progresses.

Fall 2011