Today, tribal health leaders face challenges that span underfunding, workforce shortages, and overall health disparities. Resolving these challenges requires multi-level support, targeted modernization, and ongoing improvement activities.
Healthcare technology designed to meet the needs and goals of tribal health organizations plays a large role in providing this support. Specifically, Indian Health Services (IHS) is working to modernize health IT and its infrastructure to transform the IHS healthcare system into a highly effective and sustainable model, all while maintaining a focus on culturally competent care.
This shift towards modernization reflects a broader strategy to unify and modernize reporting tools to enable faster innovation, seamless updates, and improved security.
Reporting is, of course, an essential part of tribal healthcare. Having the right tools to promote accurate, streamlined reporting is essential. In this blog, we will highlight some prominent reporting programs and share how new, modern solutions play a key part in meeting today’s ever-changing requirements.
The role of reporting in tribal healthcare
Tribal reporting systems are in place to ensure agencies are using funds to meet their missions effectively. In the case of tribal health systems, this includes reporting on quality measures to secure funding.
While there are various tribal reporting requirements and submission processes, the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and the National Data Warehouse (NDW) are two especially prominent areas within tribal reporting.
About GPRA reporting
GPRA measures for IHS include clinical care performance measures, such as care for patients with diabetes, cancer screening, immunization, behavioral health screening, and other prevention measures. The agency also reports many non-clinical measures, including rates of hospital accreditation, injury prevention, and infrastructure improvements.
About NDW reporting
The NDW is an enterprise-wide data warehouse environment for IHS’s national data repository. The National Patient Information Reporting System (NPIRS) produces various reports that are required by statute and regulation. These provide a broad range of clinical and administrative information to managers at all levels of the Indian Health system. This allows for better management of individual patients, local facilities, and regional and national programs.
What is the role of population health?
Population health services are a key pillar in identifying needs, causes, interventions, and outcomes of services within communities. The right population health tools can help tribes gain insight into their services and guide care delivery, which can be valuable in meeting reporting requirements and improving quality measures.
Population health tools offer precise, actionable data that helps identify gaps in care, risks, and patterns within communities. With this knowledge, leaders can build more targeted approaches to care.
This is important in times of modernization, as these tools help tribes stay ahead of changes with strong systems that guide their progress.
How is NextGen Healthcare responding to modernization?
In response to modernization efforts and the importance of population health, NextGen Healthcare is sunsetting support for the legacy on-premises tools IDA and NDW. The final supported versions are IDA v10.6 (released 1/31/2025) and NDW v10.6.2 (released 9/30/2024).
Our new Population Health (PHS)-Based Solution bundles Population Health and Tribal Reporting into a comprehensive tool that fuels greater visibility, improved outcomes, and better alignment with IHS modernization goals.
The new tribal reporting package includes features that target both Population Health and reporting requirements.
Population Health:
- GPRA performance analytics (26 measures)
- Embedded BI tools for NDW/IDA/GPRA review
- Scheduled submissions via Manage/Files for reporting
- Point-of-Care Insights and NextGen® Care + Hub integration
Tribal Reporting Requirements:
- NDW – Annual performance submission (User Population, Workload, Encounter Reports)
- IDA – Annual WebAudit for diabetic data
- Quarterly Title V submissions for immunizations
What are the core benefits of integrating Tribal Reporting into Population Health?
This change supports both the goals of NextGen Healthcare and lays the foundation for supporting the ongoing needs of tribal health organizations. For users, this integration offers:
- Automated GPRA and IDA reporting with full support for 26 GPRA measures
- Cloud-based access for real-time data insights
- Integrated workflows for patient management and gap closure using NextGen Care Hub and Point-of-Care Insights
- Robust logic and mapping for enhanced data capture and visualization
- Centralized access for tribes to manage reporting and monitor populations
As previously mentioned, tribal reporting systems and population health tools are key drivers in overall success, from funding to care delivery. Thus, building a solution that centers around streamlined reporting and enhanced population health and performance management brings value to tribal health organizations across the nation.
Additionally, NextGen Healthcare is on a multi-year journey to unify its platforms, aiming to empower providers with smarter tools, streamline reporting workflows, enable measurable impact on patient outcomes, and support regulatory compliance with requirements from IHS and the Department of the Interior. By upgrading our offerings, we make progress towards our goals of being a trailblazer and a trusted partner in the tribal health space.
How does this impact tribal health organizations operationally?
This change positively impacts workflows for users. Organizations transitioning from NDW/IDA utilities to Population Health benefit from:
- Reduced time and resource burden for managing utilities
- Predictable and proactive reporting cycles
- Improved data accuracy and actionable insights at the point of care
- Seamless implementation, typically completed within 7 weeks
See the first-hand impact
One NextGen Healthcare client, Feather River Tribal Health, has already noted improvements within their organization. They utilized the legacy reporting tools within the previous system and struggled with a lack of visibility into their insights. This was especially problematic for time-sensitive reporting. In addition, in order to extract and validate data, they needed significant involvement from IT.
Now, with the new PHS tools, they have seen significant improvements across the board. Solutions such as condition registries, geospatial data, and pre-visit planning have improved visibility and access to their data and allowed them to work more efficiently.
In general, this transition alleviates high resource burdens on tribes, responds to a lack of immunization reporting capability, and increases outcome impact by providing one comprehensive solution with multisource data for improved data reliability and capture.
What does this change mean for you?
For existing NextGen Healthcare population health clients, this change means an upgrade to your workflows and an elevated reporting experience. Our goal is to seamlessly transition tribes to this refined package with tools that will best support them in continuing to meet reporting requirements. Existing clients will be billed under current maintenance agreements.
Looking to make a switch? New clients can onboard with new packages and enjoy all the features, functionalities, and benefits of the new PHS-based tool. This unified platform streamlines workflows, enhances care delivery, and fosters financial stability so your organization can focus on your people and your mission.
A partner in progress
The future of reporting is here, and together we can get on the path toward smooth and successful modernization. Whether you are a long-time NextGen Healthcare client or are exploring making the switch, our team is ready to help. We look forward to continuing to support tribal healthcare alongside you.
