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If you’re an ACO worried about APP Reporting, we get it. Your concerns about the feasibility and costs of aggregating data from multiple systems are completely valid. But don’t let data complexity hoodwink you into a simplistic solution that will cost you more than the data is worth. Your solution to data aggregation needs to focus on “value,” which means that your data aggregation should also garner the most return for your investment.
If you are a one-EHR type of ACO, your data aggregation is relatively straightforward, and the cost will be reasonable. But you’re facing very different challenges if your ACO has multiple practices, both employed and independent, using different systems. Whether it’s even feasible to retrieve the data you need is a real issue, depending on the age, type, and brand of your physicians’ systems. Likewise, the cost associated with data retrieval and integration for multiple practices varies. The cost is not solely contingent on practice or patient volume. It varies by data format, by amount or size of the data, type of processing used, and storage.
Here’s the truth and—and the fiction—about aggregating data specifically for quality reporting through APPs. Quality reporting data requirements have led some ACOs to adopt a “QRDA (Quality Reporting Data Architecture) mindset” for data aggregation. This presumes that QRDAs are the answer to achieving feasibility and lower cost for APP reporting, and that all EHRs can export QRDA 1s. But is this assumption about the value of data versus the cost of data acquisition actually valid? Let’s break it down…