Data Process
AIM guides state and jurisdiction teams through a data process, adapting strategies to meet state and jurisdictions’ needs and providing support along the way.
1. Access Administrative Data
State and jurisdiction teams will identify the entities who manage hospital discharge and vital records data and execute necessary agreements so they may access ongoing data for quality improvement activities. This may include paying for data and, in cases in which the state or jurisdiction team cannot calculate outcome measures on their own, requesting pre-calculated outcomes.
2. Develop a Project Measurement Strategy
State and jurisdiction teams will review AIM’s project measurement strategy for their selected patient safety bundle and comprehensively plan which quality improvement data participating facility teams will collect and report. Teams will identify SMART goals and identify other evaluation and dissemination activities to support their patient safety bundle implementation work.
3. Determine a Data Collection and Reporting Pathway
State and jurisdiction teams will determine the most appropriate way to collect and submit data to the AIM Data Center. Typically, state and jurisdiction teams will collect process and structure data from facility teams via an independently developed data portal, or facility teams will submit data directly to the AIM Data Center.
4. Join the AIM Data Center
5. Report Quality Improvement Data to AIM
Upon access to the Data Center, state and jurisdiction teams can report baseline outcome measures data, invite facility users to the Data Center and submit ongoing quality improvement data. If a state or jurisdiction team has an independently developed data collection system, they should plan to submit quality improvement data to AIM via the Data Center at minimum once a year, though more frequent data submission is encouraged.
6. Use Data to Monitor and Sustain Implementation of Best Practices
State and jurisdiction teams will establish a plan for sustaining their quality improvement initiatives. Ideally, this will include developing data-driven goals for facility teams to achieve before ending more active phases of quality improvement projects and developing a system to monitor the sustainment of implemented changes and best practices over time.
7. Evaluate Impact and Disseminate Findings
As state and jurisdiction teams end more active phases of their quality improvement project, they will evaluate and report on the implementation of AIM patient safety bundles. This will, at minimum, include developing and submitting an impact statement to AIM, but may also include publishing abstracts and manuscripts and presenting at conferences.
