On October 31, 2003 then WHA President Steve Brenton and Department of Administration (DOA) Secretary Marc Marotta put pen to paper, signing the contract making transfer of hospital inpatient data collection from the Bureau of Health Information (BHI) to WHA official.
“It’s a crucial time in the world of health care information,” said Brenton, “a time in which WHA intends to lead, not follow.”
As a result of this new partnership, Wisconsin hospitals were no longer assessed $1.3 million per year to fund the data collection efforts and the number of FTEs to run the program decreased from 25 to 4. The WHA Information Center (WHAIC) modernized the data collection process from an older bulletin-board type submission to a current web-based application that allows for real-time editing. This new system also enabled the collection of new categories of outpatient data and unlimited numbers of diagnoses, procedures and revenue-line detail, within seconds. The entire process from data submission to validation is paperless, and quicker, reducing data set turnaround time to 4 months down from 18 months from end of quarter.
Click to see the Valued Voice story from November 7, 2003.
Today, WHAIC’s data capabilities continue to help the public and policymakers access accurate and useful information while empowering health care entities to continue improving care. In addition to collecting its own important data sets, WHAIC has become a valuable resource for aggregating data from other sources and turning it into meaningful information. WHAIC’s COVID-19 Situational Awareness Update is a leading resource for information related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including dynamic display of important trends is just one example.
WHAIC is also well-positioned to be a key resource to inform how health care will look in the future. One key area of focus includes using data to identify health care disparities. Continuing to add valuable data is essential to better understand the current, and future, health care world. To that end, the WHAIC has become the only hospital association in the country to attain status as a Certified Quality Entity (QE) under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Qualified Entity Certification Program. This will enable WHAIC to eventually receive Medicare Parts A and B medical claims data and Part D prescription drug claims data for use in evaluating provider performance and to help inform policy decisions.
See the WHA Information Center website.