[Originally posted on LinkedIn 7/6/22]
While preparing for the Digital Quality Summit (#DQS2022) next week, I found the closing poem I wrote and delivered at the end of the 2018 in-person meeting.

I tried to capture the intense and meaningful conversations I observed during the general sessions and tracks that year.

For those of you who haven’t (yet) attended, maybe this rhyme will give you a sense of what happens at #DQS2022 and nudge some of you to register for this year’s virtual meeting next week (July 12 – 13). Enjoy…

Closing Remarks: 2018 Digital Quality Summit
By Michael S. Barr

As I roamed through the workgroups,
Seeking insight and knowledge,
Your focus and intensity,
Reminded me of pre-meds in college.

Here is some of what I heard…

It seems everything is on FHIR,
What it is, I’m still not sure.
Is Da Vinci working with Argonauts,
In the realms of HQMF, QDM, and CQL Core?

The quality of data,
Drives the usefulness of a measure.
Figuring this out,
Is like the search for lost treasure.

Precision, completeness,
Timeliness and accuracy.
Syntax, terminology,
Consistency, and veracity.

Can we assess the quality,
Of the data from all contributing actors,
And develop a scorecard,
That considers these factors?

Can we modularize libraries,
Value sets and artifacts,
To create shareable decision support,
To which good clinicians and teams react?

These clinical recommendations,
Should be based on evidence and implementation experience,
To help reduce the desire for every system and health plan,
To create its own variants.

Unless a deviation leads to a better creation,
At which time, a true learning health system,
Would have the motivation and a process,
To publish a shareable modification.

And don’t present a long list of patients,
Based on a predefined measure range.
Use social factors to stratify reports,
For clinicians to focus on those for whom they have a chance to affect change.

We learned about performance, quality,
Dissemination and decisions,
And heard both practical solutions,
And grandiose visions.

Visions drive the pace,
It’s a journey – not a race.
And all of us together in this space,
Share the desire for a healthier place.

So remember the passion and enthusiasm of today,
Don’t let doubt get in your way.
We’re not there yet, but we can get there soon,
Because the power to change healthcare,
Is in this room.