Quality Variation Indicators™ (QVIs)

Strata Partnership with Yale New Haven Health System Builds Clinically-Proven Quality Variation Indicators™ into StrataJazz^®

Strata Decision has embedded Yale New Haven Health Systems’ (YNHHS) clinically-proven Quality Variation Indicators (QVIs) into StrataJazz. YNHHS is 2,130-bed health system that includes Yale-New Haven Hospital, the primary teaching hospital for Yale School of Medicine (YSM), and regularly ranks among the best hospitals in the U.S.

Background on YNHHS’s Quality Variation Indicators

As part of a $125 million Value Improvement Initiative, QVIs were developed by YNHHS’s financial and clinical leaders who realized that they needed to learn to speak the same language on cost and quality metrics in order to reach the health system’s goal of reducing variation, improving patient outcomes, and decreasing overall costs.  QVIs are not quality measures anchored in the logic of financial penalties.  Rather, QVIs represent a comprehensive definition of quality and safety measures that suggest an inpatient may not have received optimal care resulting in potentially preventable complications and adverse events.  YNHHS currently tracks nearly 30 QVI categories, such as central line associated blood stream infections, deep vein thrombosis, and iatrogenic pneumothoraces (or punctured lungs).  On average, YNHHS has found that cases with QVIs cost three to four times more than cases without QVIs.

QVIs are Built into StrataJazz to Help Providers Understand the High Cost of Quality Variation

StrataJazz incorporates QVI reports, making this proven methodology accessible to health systems that don’t have the time or resources to implement such a complex approach on their own. Combining that information with actual cost information from StrataJazz Cost Accounting provides the ability to translate potentially preventable complications and adverse events into measurable costs.

“At Yale New Haven, we’ve proven that improving quality improves margins, allowing us to reinvest in our mission. Leveraging QVIs, we created a common language to engage physicians, nurses and other clinicians to lead improvement efforts.  Our partnership with Strata provides other health systems the ability to have similar conversations that lead to better results for both patients and their bottom line.”

–Steve Allegretto, System Vice President of Analytic Strategy and Financial Planning at YNHHS

List of QVIs