U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Indian Health Service: The Federal Health Program for American Indians and Alaska Natives
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NPIRS CLINICAL DATA MART

Division of Oral Health Case Study

The Problem

Like most IHS clinical programs, the Division of Oral Health had limited ability to "slice and dice" data that would best meet their program reporting requirements. Additionally, it was extremely difficult to obtain nationally aggregated reports since Dental services are documented at the local RPMS level. As a result, to obtain national level reports and data in a format and content most useful to the DOH, was difficult at best. Additionally, it was difficult to meet new agency initiatives using data only from local RPMS systems.

The Solution

The DOH partnered with the NPIRS program to develop a DOH "data mart" to access reports defined by DOH program staff. Utilizing Dental data exported from local RPMS systems to the National Data Warehouse (NDW) project in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the NPIRS program developed automated routines that extract data stored as part of the NDW. Using logic provided by DOH staff, reports were programmed to allow the DOH to easily obtain reports useful for workload reporting, program management activities and national performance measures. Most reports have the ability to apply “filters” to customize the reports as well as providing the ability to report data by national, area (regional), service unit or facility level.

The Benefits

The DOH now has a fully operational web-based data mart containing customizable reports for workload, program management and performance measurement activities. The application is available anytime to users with appropriate access. User access is controlled by the DOH staff through a robust security system administered by DOH. In addition to providing access to nationally aggregated data, the application also contains several Government Performance Results Act (GPRA) performance measures. Using the GPRA reporting tools, DOH staff can monitor individual Dental programs performance to ensure established GPRA targets can be met. In addition, the DOH data mart also now contains reports specific to the most recent DOH initiative, the "Early Childhood Caries" (ECC) initiative. New requirements can be added to the data mart as they are defined by DOH staff.