PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CMMI® Institute has announced public availability of the Patient Demographic Data Quality (PDDQ) framework, developed in partnership with the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Controller (ONC) for Health IT. The framework was created to improve patient safety by helping organizations accurately and consistently match patient data internally as well as between organizations.

According to the 2016 National Patient Misidentification Report, released by the Ponemon Institute, 86 percent of healthcare practitioners have witnessed or know of a medical error caused by patient misidentification. With increased digital records, the risk for errors grows, often due to a lack of training and standards. This can lead to adverse effects, such as duplicative testing, incorrect treatments or diagnoses, and errors in insurance claims and billing.

Defining and adopting standards, as well as implementing sound data management processes, requires increased awareness, effective collaboration and a cultural evolution toward shared responsibility, both within and across healthcare organizations. “Patients and practitioners alike need to have the assurance that medical errors do not occur due to improperly recorded data,” said Kirk Botula, CEO, CMMI Institute.

“The ONC Community of Practice analyzed available frameworks and selected the CMMI Institute’s Data Management Maturity (DMM)SM model as the baseline for developing the PDDQ framework of best practices,” said Lee Stevens, Director of State and Interoperability Policy, ONC. “The DMM’s fact-based approach and built-in path for capability growth is aligned with the healthcare industry’s need for a comprehensive standard.”

The PDDQ framework contains practical best practices in 19 data management process areas designed to evaluate an organization’s strengths and gaps, and enables a clear formulation of needed quality improvements. The PDDQ will fostercollaboration and consensus among stakeholders, to ensure that data is understood, aligned and trusted across the organization and the patient care lifecycle. “The PDDQ provides a comprehensive evaluation of data management practices for patient data through all health care process areas, including registration, patient care, laboratory, pharmacy, claims and billing,” said Melanie Mecca, Director of Data Management Products and Services at CMMI Institute.

The PDDQ’s flexible structure means it can be applied in whole or in part to suit healthcare organizations. Additionally, the PDDQ framework advocates organization-wide alignment on the following key factors:

• Implementation of data governance functions
• Data quality improvements and assurance
• Managing operational components
• Defining and mapping data dependencies
• Supporting access to shared data interoperability

Implementing PDDQ Framework in Healthcare Organizations

As the creators of the Data Management Maturity (DMM)SM framework, CMMI Institute offers DMM assessments, a workshop-based process that rapidly identifies an organization’s current capabilities, maturity levels, and practice areas where additional capabilities are required. Specific to PDDQ, CMMI Institute data management experts can quickly produce actionable results utilizing our proven approach:

• Determine the necessary participants and stakeholders in the patient demographic data lifecycle
• Conduct interactive workshops and interviews to gain insight on current patient data matching practices and processes, explore existing gaps, and discover strengths
• Provide a report of recommendations used to guide the organization's data quality plan and implementation activity. This provides a benchmark against which future progress can be measured.

A free copy of the PDDQ Framework is available here. To learn more about how the CMMI Institute can help the PDDQ implementations, contact info@cmmiinstitute.com for more information.

About HHS

It is the mission of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) to enhance and protect the health and well-being of all Americans. HHS fulfills that mission by providing for effective health and human services and fostering advances in medicine, public health, and social services. Within the HHS is the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), which is at the forefront of the administration’s health IT efforts and is a resource to the entire health system to support the adoption of health information technology and the promotion of nationwide health information exchange to improve health care. To learn more, visit www.hhs.gov.

About CMMI® Institute

A subsidiary of ISACA Enterprises, CMMI Institute (CMMIinstitute.com) is the global leader in the advancement of best practices in people, process, and technology. The Institute provides the tools and support for organizations to benchmark their capabilities and build maturity by comparing their operations to best practices and identifying performance gaps. For over 25 years, thousands of high-performing organizations in a variety of industries, including aerospace, finance, healthcare, software, defense, transportation, and telecommunications, have earned a CMMI maturity level rating and proved they are capable business partners and suppliers.