Automating care quality measurement with health information technology.

Objectives: To assess the performance of a health information technology platform that enables automated measurement of asthma care quality using comprehensive electronic medical record (EMR) data, including providers' free-text notes.

Study Design: Retrospective data study of outpatient asthma care in Kaiser Permanente Northwest (KPNW), a midsized health maintenance organization (HMO), and OCHIN, Inc, a group of Federally Qualified Health Centers.

Methods: We created 22 automated quality measures addressing guideline-recommended outpatient asthma care.