Development, implementation, and use of an "equity lens" integrated into an institutional quality scorecard

Abstract

Few healthcare provider organizations systematically track their healthcare equity, and fewer enable direct interaction with such data by their employees. From May to August 2019, we enhanced the data architecture and reporting functionality of our existing institutional quality scorecard to allow direct comparisons of quality measure performance by gender, age, race, ethnicity, language, zip code, and payor. The Equity Lens was made available to over 4000 staff in September 2019 for 82 institutional quality measures. During the first 11 months, 235 unique individuals used the tool; users were most commonly from the quality and equity departments. Two early use cases evaluated hypertension control and readmissions by race, identifying potential inequities. This is the first description of an interactive equity lens integrated into an institutional quality scorecard made available to healthcare system employees. Early evidence suggests the tool is used and can inform quality improvement initiatives.

Keywords: dashboard; disparities; equity; healthcare systems; quality; scorecard.