Date: Saturday, July 18, 2026
Hello! We’re Emily and Russ with Deloitte’s Evaluation and Research for Action Center of Excellence. We know that in healthcare, quality improvement efforts demand ambition, but what is sometimes lacking is the right information, at the right time, in front of the right people. Bridging the gap between measuring and improving quality is where critically important work resides.
For decades, healthcare organizations have invested in quality measurement. The result has been a multitude of metrics and scorecards leaving frontline teams overwhelmed with data but lacking useful insight.
The challenges are familiar: Fragmented data sources (e.g., siloed Electronic Health Records (EHR), disparate claims feeds, incompatible registries) obscure views of performance. Overlapping, misaligned measures can make a clinical team meet one program’s standard while failing another simply because definitions differ. And because most quality indicators lag, by the time an anomaly or adverse outcome appears in a formal report, the opportunity for meaningful clinical intervention has passed.
Tensions between industry-standard measures (e.g., Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set, Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services [CMS] quality measures, Joint Commission requirements) and internal metrics worsen the problem. When measures conflict, quality teams must reconcile competing scorecards and explain inconsistent results to skeptical clinical teams, instead of collaborating to improve care. This shifts focus away from meaningful improvement toward a check-the-box compliance mindset.
Timely, relevant analysis based on trusted data helps quality and clinical teams understand not only how they are performing, but why, what drives results, and what to do next. By clarifying root causes, these insights help organizations target and refine improvement efforts to have the greatest impact with the least disruption. They also strengthen support for continuous monitoring and the infrastructure needed to sustain it, allowing sustained improvements across quality domains.
Different quality domains require different improvement strategies. Safe care depends on real-time surveillance and automated alerts for adverse events (e.g., infections, complications, falls). Effective care for chronic conditions requires longitudinal, population-level tracking. Timely care relies on scheduling analytics. Patient-centered care depends on combining Consumer Assessment Healthcare Providers Systems experience data with clinical outcomes. Meeting these needs requires modern quality analytics and improvement science, including predictive modeling, AI-enabled clinical decision support, Internet of Things (IoT) monitoring, and automated natural language processing (NLP). The key question is whether organizations are ready to use these tools to deliver insights to the leaders best positioned to act.
Deloitte brings a distinctive mix of capabilities to this challenge: quality measurement, large-scale data analytics, GAGAS-compliant auditing, reporting optimization, and continuous improvement. Our Life Sciences and Health Care practice and Evaluation and Research for Action Center of Excellence turn data findings into targeted improvements and action plans for health systems, federal agencies, and payers.
We currently support the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) quality audit, under the Elizabeth Dole Act of 2025. The audit covers 32 measures across four domains of VA’s direct and community care networks. Our team is assessing accuracy and reliability of VA’s measurement methods, validating data sources including VHA’s Corporate Data Warehouse and EHR, and evaluating alignment with industry measure stewards (e.g., CMS, National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)). We are assessing whether quality information is accessible and understandable so it can inform not only oversight bodies, but also frontline clinical teams and Veterans.
Quality data has little value if it does not reach the people who can interpret and then act on it. When measurement is accurate, timely, and trusted, it becomes the foundation for better healthcare decisions and meaningful improvement.
This posting contains general information only, does not constitute professional advice or services, and should not be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Deloitte shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this posting.
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