Foundation Blog – Data stewardship and collaboration

By Jen Miff, President of the DFWHC Foundation

As I write this, I am entering my fourth month with the DFW Hospital Council (DFWHC) Foundation. I continue to be awed by the dedicated collaboration across our community. Working together, we advance the DFWHC Foundation’s vision to inspire collective improvement of health outcomes.

Last month, the DFWHC Foundation Board approved a three-year strategic plan. Our first objective will be to continue to highlight our role as data stewards – how we protect and oversee use of the North Texas Health Information & Quality Collaborative (NTHIQC) data. Second, we will place a greater emphasis on partnerships to expand programming. Third, we will leverage national expertise and best practices to supplement member and data-driven insights. We will also continue to optimize our data warehouse and work to deliver our new data reservoir to drive expanded analysis opportunities.

In addition, you will continue to see the DFWHC Foundation use the NTHIQC data to identify areas for community improvement. For example, we plan to look at social disparities in aging populations in North Texas as it relates to falls and chronic conditions. As a region, we can connect resources to clinical care to drive improvement.

Beyond our data focus, 2020 priorities will include:

1) An Opioid Management Task Force focused on education and best practices;
2) Patient and family advisory councils (PFACs) to improve patient outcomes;
3) Mental Health First Aid training (80% of 10,000 goal achieved) via a grant from
the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS);
4) DSHS grant to evaluate referral programs between diabetes clinics and
community-based CDC-recognized lifestyle change programs;
5) Workforce apprenticeships grant with the Department of Labor (DOL) and the
Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD);
6) Grants to develop front-line worker job definitions and skills development; and
7) Education detailing the issues of workplace violence.

Finally, I want to thank our data team at the DFWHC Foundation, our IT team at DFWHC and our partner Teknion for delivering our new data warehouse in the cloud by year-end. As your data stewards, we take the responsibility of protecting the NTHIQC data seriously. We will continue to work tirelessly to maintain your trust every day.