Purpose: To describe the Medical Quality Improvement Consortium (MQIC) database and opportunities for research applications
Method: A growing proportion of U.S. ambulatory care physician practices are adopting Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems. GE Centricity is an EHR in use by more than 30,000 clinicians for almost 30 million patients in 49 states. Those providers that wish to participate in the Medical Quality Improvement Consortium (MQIC) may do so. Currently the MQIC database contains EHR data collected from over 11,000 clinicians in the United States and includes over 12 million patients as of April 2009. Of the participating providers 69% are primary practice providers. Comparisons of the MQIC patient population to the general population of the United States on demographics (US Census), healthcare utilization (NCHS-NAMCS), and disease prevalence (NCHS-NHANES) have consistently shown the MQIC population to be fairly representative. As a clinical system, patients represent all payers including the uninsured. The MQIC database documents diagnostic and therapeutic services, specifically laboratory test results (with exact amounts and units of measurement) and medications ordered with data at multiple points in time, allowing for longitudinal analyses needed for tracking treatment modality and clinical health outcomes. A unique capability of the MQIC database includes data normalization and mapping of terms to standard terminology and clinical concepts that captures greater clinical detail than is available through ICD9 codes. Information in MQIC is available for analysis within 30 days from the point of clinical care making one of the largest near-real time databases available for research purposes.
Result: Since 2001, the MQIC database has been utilized for hundreds of research studies including clinical trials. A unique opportunity exists for ambulatory care improvement tie-ins that can integrate custom data collection and decision-making algorithms into the GE Centricity EHR system. In the past 5 years studies conducted using MQIC data have resulted in over 39 peer-reviewed abstracts and 17 manuscripts accepted for publication. Future plans for the MQIC database include integration with other data sources including practice management systems to add scheduling and claims data to provide additional data to support health services and clinical research.
Conclusion: The combination of the GE Centricity provider network and the GE MQIC clinical database provides a powerful set of resources for health services and clinical outcomes research.
Candidate for the Lee B. Lusted Student Prize Competition