Data Availability
For the criteria data availability and collection effort, it is reasonable to provide a common information base and then use it for the assessment of both aspects.
Which collection efforts are justifiable is directly related to the relevance of the quality indicator. If the level of care is generally low with a large case number and the expected benefit is great, a higher collection effort can be justified.
The application of this criterion is only meaningful in a prospective assessment (new or further development) of quality indicators. If results for the assessment of the quality of care related to the quality indicator under consideration already exist at the time of the assessment (retrospective), such that the work needed for the collection has already been done, there is no role for a further collection effort.
Definition
The data are routinely gathered by the provider or the collection requires justifiably additional effort.
Core Statement
The following statement is assessed: “The data are routinely documented by the provider or the collection requires justifiably additional effort.”
Information Base for the Assessment
For the assessment of the core statement, all data that are utilized for the calculation of the quality indicator are listed. It is reasonable to make a distinction into administrative routine data, which are available without additional effort, clinical routine data (which are available without additional effort in the case of software-supported medical documentation) and data which have to be collected specifically for the purpose of measurement and always require additional effort (see table 4).
| Kind of data |
Availability, collection and registration effort |
| Administrative routine data |
Data are already electronically collected and available from a database |
| Clinical routine data |
Data are available in paper format, but have to be captured electronically, if not already available from a database |
| Additional data to be collected |
Data have to be gathered additionally and captured electronically
|
Table 4: Availability, collection and registration efforts differentiated according to the kind of data
The assessment results of the criteria of the category relevance should already be available for the assessment of data availability, in order to assess the collection effort in relation to the criteria relevance.
Assessment Process
After all evaluators have acknowledged and understood the information base, they assess the core statement. The respective collection effort results from the complexity and the quantity of the data.
The assessment process is described in detail in Appendix 1.
Assessment Stages
1 = does not apply
2 = rather does not apply
3 = rather applies
4 = applies
Abstention
