Quality measures in healthcare
Quantify the success of healthcare processes, outcomes, patient care, and more
CU Orthopedics Quality Program
Partnering with PatientIQ to Improve Quality Care Across All Orthopedic Specialties
“As our patient population continues to grow, we must ensure that we maintain our standard of excellence throughout the practice,” said Kenneth Hunt, MD, vice president of quality, patient safety, and outcomes in orthopedics.
How CU Medicine Leverages PatientIQ to Maintain a Center of Excellence Designation
What are quality measures in healthcare?
According to CMS.gov, "Quality measures are tools that help us measure or quantify healthcare processes, outcomes, patient perceptions, and organizational structure and/or systems that are associated with the ability to provide high-quality health care and/or that relate to one or more quality goals for health care. These goals include effective, safe, efficient, patient-centered, equitable, and timely care."
Through leveraging the data collected through PatientIQ we are able to:
- Ensure patient safety
- Guide our patients in their decision-making on their treatment
- Help our patients make more informed choices about the health care they receive
- Patients see how they are improving after the treatment is implemented
- Discover areas where interventions might improve care
- Analyze trends
- Benchmark patient populations
- Generate insights into how to best treat patients over time
- Provide objective data to encourage change in policy discussions on healthcare programs
Best Orthopedic group in Denver. Best Orthopedic group in Colorado. And one of the top 20 orthopedic surgery programs in the country. Creating quality care in health care through outcome measures.
Our doctors help make UCHealth and Children's Hospital Colorado the best in the region, so we're honored to be nationally ranked by U.S. News and World Report. It's our mission to lead the community in high-quality, innovative orthopedic care. And as part of an academic medical institution, we're also leading the field with cutting-edge musculoskeletal research and training the next generation of orthopedic surgeons.
Our Mission- To provide the highest quality, professional and ethical care to all patients through integration of comprehensive education and exceptional musculoskeletal research.
- To lead the community in the highest quality of Orthopedic care for all patients
- To educate all individuals to the highest standards of patient care, professionalism, and ethics
- To create centers of excellence within Orthopedic care, recognized on a national level
- Provide quality and innovative care to all patients
- Promote integrity and respect all interactions
- Educate professional, ethical, and competent clinicians and scientists
- Holistic governance in a transparent and financially responsible fashion
- Create a diverse environment that fosters excellence and rewarding opportunities
- Create collaborative and integrative units that promote education, research, clinical care and community service
Kenneth Hunt, MD
Associate Professor and Chief- Foot and Ankle Surgery
Vice Chair-Quality, Patient Safety and Outcomes
Dr. Ken Hunt is the Director of the UCHealth Foot and Ankle Center, Associate Professor and Vice-Chair of Quality, Patient Safety, and Outcomes for the University of Colorado Department of Orthopedics. His philosophy of care is the commitment to his patients and their families to deliver care that is supported by the highest order of compassion, innovation, science, and technology. He enjoys spending time with his family, skiing, hiking, and traveling.
Our Team
Shayne York, MS
Quality Program Assistant
Shayne York is a Quality Program Assistant in the University of Colorado School of Medicine Department of Orthopedics. He has completed graduate studies in exercise physiology and biomechanics and has presented research at national and international conferences.
Lauren Heylmun, BS
Quality Program Assistant
Lauren Heylmun graduated from Texas A&M University with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences. She supports the patient-reported outcomes program for the University of Colorado’s Department of Orthopedics South Denver Metro locations. Her goal is to improve the patient experience by providing the opportunity for them to review their progress through an objective lens. In her spare time, she enjoys skiing, hiking, running, yoga, and walking her dog.
The Department of Orthopedics would like to highlight the following resources to help both clinicians and individuals interested in orthopedic quality improvement.
- Starting up a new quality program? Click here for a review of quality registry resources by our CU Orthopedics quality program team.
- CU Orthopedics researchers present lessons learned from launch of new patient reported outcomes platform. Click here for a summary
Outcomes
The Department of Orthopedics recently contracted with Chicago-based PatientIQ, a leader in secure delivery and measurement of patient-reported outcomes, to initiate collection and analysis of outcomes from patients receiving care by five of our adult clinical sub-specialties.
Implementation of a system-wide orthopaedic outcomes database: The University of Colorado Orthopaedic Surgery Monitoring of Outcomes System (U-COSMOS)
U-COSMOS (University of Colorado Surgical Monitoring and Outcomes System) is a consortium of outcomes-focused providers from all sub-specialties within the Department of Orthopedics. Check here periodically for recent U-COSMOS publications.
Quality Outcome News
University of Colorado Medicine Expands Partnership with PatientIQ to Enhance Quality Across Specialties
How Patient Outcomes Survey Helps Measure Effectiveness of Orthopedic Procedures
University of Colorado Medicine (CU Medicine), the region’s largest and most comprehensive multi-specialty physician group practice, has expanded its partnership with PatientIQ to prioritize quality improvement across multiple clinical specialties. With more than 3,500 physicians and advance practice providers, CU Medicine first partnered with PatientIQ in 2019 to collect and measure patient-reported outcomes specific to its orthopedic practice. Today, CU Medicine utilizes the PatientIQ platform to leverage outcomes data within its integrated spine center, orthopedics, sports medicine, plastic surgery, and physical and occupational therapy. The expansion enables CU Medicine to comprehensively measure the quality of its clinical care.
Opens in a new windowRead moreThe PatientIQ program at UCHealth uses patient reported outcomes to assess treatment success.
Growing up outside Cleveland in the 1970s, Randy Voss spent plenty of time playing competitive sports on the football field and basketball court. He endured plenty of nicks and dings as a result, and often hobbled about on crutches, both during and after high school. His ankles took the most abuse. “I had a lot of sprains,” he said, adding that he simply pushed through them. There wasn’t much in the way of sophisticated medical care, and slow healing wasn’t his goal anyway. “You just tried to get back on the field as soon as you could,” Voss said.