Welcome to CQA

The Clinical and Quality Analysis, Information Systems (CQA) group at
Partners HealthCare System, Inc. is responsible for evaluating information systems across the Partners' network. The CQA team does both analyses intended to improve operations internally, as well as research analyses intended for publication. These analyses focus on the benefits, costs and net impact of clinical information systems. CQA collaborates closely with many of the IS departments, including Clinical Informatics Research and Development, Application Development, and Clinical Systems Management, as well as with many clinicians across Partners, health service professionals, informaticians and researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.

The CQA group focuses in particular on evaluating the impact of clinical decision support, across a wide array of domains. David W. Bates, MD, MSc, the Director of the CQA group, is a leading international figure in this area. His research group continues to play a major role in defining the current level of medication safety and how it may be improved. Among the many applications developed by Partners IS are a computerized physician order entry (CPOE) application, in place since 1993, a computerized outpatient electronic health record (EHR), first implemented in 1993, and an application known as the Patient Gateway, which allows patients to see an extract of their EHR and interact with providers. One evaluation demonstrated that CPOE decreased the serious medication error rate by 55% in inpatients. The overall goal of CQA is to perform evaluations which demonstrate the value of high quality information technology in health care.