ANN ARBOR — A statewide initiative to improve emergency medicine has selected the RegistryMetrix cloud-based analytics service of Ann Arbor-based ArborMetrix.
The Michigan Emergency Department Improvement Collaborative (MEDIC) is a collaboration between the University of Michigan and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. It is the first Collaborative Quality Initiative in Michigan to include a focus on children as well as adults.
MEDIC will use RegistryMetrix to develop a data infrastructure and reporting system for identifying best practices and quality improvement in emergency care for children and adults. MEDIC plans an initial hospital enrollment of eight to 10 pediatric and general care emergency departments for a launch in the first quarter of 2016, with more from across the state to be added in waves in the future.
“We plan to have representation from emergency departments in a variety of settings – urban, rural, academic and community – to ensure we all learn from each other,” said Keith Kocher, M.D., project director and assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.
In 2013, Michigan’s ER visit rate was 15 percent higher than the national average. From 2000 to 2011, the rate of ED visits in Michigan increased by approximately 4.6 million. Nationally, emergency department expenses have been estimated to make up as much as 10 percent of the $2.8 trillion annually spent on healthcare. That makes the emergency department a logical place to look for improvements in patient care and quality, as well as cost savings.
Said Brett Furst, CEO of ArborMetrix. “We anticipate that the MEDIC initiative will result in advanced insights that will not only lower the cost of emergency care in Michigan, but significantly improve quality.”
More about MEDIC at http://medicqi.org/.
ArborMetrix provides a private cloud-based platform for performance measurement and clinical intelligence in acute and specialty care. More at www.arbormetrix.com.