Control Charts for Visualizing Quality Registry Data at the Swedish National Diabetes Register: The Level and Efforts Charts

• Activity Number: 185
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 10, 2015 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Teaching of Statistics in the Health Sciences
• Author(s): Hendry Raharjo* and Bo Bergman
• Companies: Chalmers University of Technology and Chalmers University of Technology
• Keywords: quality registry data ; statistical process control ; diabetes ; data visualization ; healthcare

Abstract

We propose a pair of control charts, called level and efforts charts (LE charts), to improve the current practice of visualizing quality registry data at the Swedish National Diabetes Register. The patients' glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) level is used as the quality indicator of interest. The level chart is used to show the mean values of all patients' HbA1c level in a certain hospital over time. The efforts chart is used to show the overall joint efforts between the patient and the diabetes care over time in managing and reducing their HbA1c level. A bottom-up approach from individual patient level to hospital level is used for constructing this chart. The efforts chart should be used together with the level chart. We looked at all diabetes type 1 patients in Sweden who are taken care of by the hospitals from 2000 until 2014. For illustrating how the proposed charts work, four cases representing various sizes of hospitals in different geographical places are used. The results show that both charts complement each other well in providing information on what has happened in the past as to provide support for quality improvement actions.