Differences between SANER and Quality Reporting Measures

 

As I work through SANER IG Development, more of the content is being focused on explaining measures of situation awareness and how they differ from measures for quality reporting.  While quality reporting and situation awareness measures share some of the same structures, they have different rules of engagement.

1. Quality Reporting measures are expected to remain stable, Situation Awareness measures need to adapt to a changing environment and needs.
   
   
2. Quality Reporting measures have a longer time frame to implementation (e.g., months), situation awareness measures are much shorter (weeks or even days).
   
   
3. Quality Reporting measures have an identifiable financial return on investment based on payer and federal quality management and improvement programs (e.g., MIPS, MACRA, ACOs), Situation Awareness measures: Not so much.
   
   
4. Hospitals are directly incented for quality measurement implementation with enough $ for a positive bottom line impact. While there are some reimbursement programs available (e.g., to states for emergency preparedness), those $ generally flow to states and through them to facilities, and generally only offset some of the costs of implementation.
   
   
5. Situation Awareness measurement programs are driven by government mandates, Quality Reporting measures are incented by government payments.  It's a very thin gray line, because for most, the "incentives" are effectively mandatory for many implementers, but the fact that there's a payment involved means that the drivers for implementation inside an organization do exist for quality measurement.
   
   
6. Quality measures come out of the healthcare space, Situation Awareness measures come from emergency preparedness and response space.  The intersection between these skill sets results in a smaller group of SMEs familiar with both sides (and I'm not fully there yet).