Interesting commentary by Dr. Cosgrove, President and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, on transparency and a patient’s right to information as part of the Learning Health System Commentary Series of the IOM Roundtable on Value & Science-Driven Health Care.
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TrackbackFor the 10th year in a row, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has produced the National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) and the National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR). These reports measure trends in effectiveness of care, patient safety, timeliness of care, patient centeredness, and efficiency of care. The reports present, in chart form, the latest available findings on quality of and access to health care.
Comments rss TrackbackWhyNotTheBest.org’s interactive map has been updated to include the latest round of accountable care organizations (ACOs) to join Medicare’s Shared Savings Program—bringing the total to 219 groups around the nation. Users can track the spread of ACOs and other types of quality improvement activity and performance recognition through our series of map overlays.
Users can also use the map to explore performance variation among states, counties, and hospital referral regions on measures of health care quality, safety, outcomes, patient experiences, use of health information technology, and more.
For help using the map, watch this short video demo. Or check out this infographic showcasing performance variation across the nation.
Comments rss TrackbackThe Leapfrog Group released Spring 2013 update to the Hospital Safety Score that assigns “A,” “B,” “C,” “D” or “F” grades to more than 2,500 general hospitals in the United States. The update showed hospitals have made only incremental progress in addressing errors, accidents, injuries and infections that kill or hurt their patients. The scores for specific hospitals may be found at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.
Comments rss TrackbackThe Centers for Medicare & Medicaid released provider charge data that show significant variation across the country and within communities in what hospitals charge for common inpatient services. The data provided include hospital-specific charges for the more than 3,000 U.S. hospitals that receive Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) payments for the top 100 most frequently billed discharges, paid under Medicare based on a rate per discharge using the Medicare Severity Diagnosis Related Group (MS-DRG) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2011. These DRGs represent almost 7 million discharges or 60 percent of total Medicare IPPS discharges. Hospitals determine what they will charge for items and services provided to patients and these charges are the amount the hospital bills for an item or service. The Total Payment amount includes the MS-DRG amount, bill total per diem, beneficiary primary payer claim payment amount, beneficiary Part A coinsurance amount, beneficiary deductible amount, beneficiary blood deducible amount and DRG outlier amount. For these DRGs, average charges and average Medicare payments are calculated at the individual hospital level. Users will be able to make comparisons between the amount charged by individual hospitals within local markets, and nationwide, for services that might be furnished in connection with a particular inpatient stay.
To download Provider Charge Data, visit http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/Medicare-Provider-Charge-Data/index.html
Comments rss TrackbackThe Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) released its latest report – “California Report on Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery, 2009-2010,” – which found that California’s operative mortality rates have decreased 31% for patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, The report includes data collected from 120 California-licensed hospitals where 271 surgeons performed 12,548 adult isolated CABG surgeries in 2010. Performance ratings for the hospitals are based on three risk-adjusted outcomes: operative mortality, operative stroke, and unplanned hospital readmission.
Read full report at http://oshpd.ca.gov/HID/Products/Clinical_Data/CABG/10Breakdown.html
Comments rss TrackbackA recent study published in JSTOR Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, found that substantial progress has been made in reducing the occurrence of CLABSIs in US critical care patients over the past 2 decades. The study, National Estimates of Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections in Critical Care Patients, sought to identify changes in the annual number of CLABSI in critical care patients in the U.S. Using administrative data for hospitals nationally and applying CLABSI rates from the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance and National Healthcare Safety Network systems, the researchers estimated the annual number of CLABSIs in critical care patients nationally during the period 1990-2010 and the number of CLABSIs prevented since 1990.
Comments rss TrackbackWisconsin Hospital Association released a new report (Wisconsin Hospitals 2012 Quality Report) on the progress that Wisconsin hospitals have made in quality improvement during 2012. The report shows that Wisconsin hospitals are decreasing infections, reducing readmissions and preventing hospital-associated conditions. Read full report at http://www.wha.org/pdf/2012QualityReport.pdf
Comments rss TrackbackData has been updated on CMS Hospital Compare as follows:
Measuresets not updated:
Comments rss TrackbackThe Washington Post writes of a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that found surgical complications can be incredibly profitable for a hospital. A surgical complication increases a procedure’s average contribution margin by 330 percent for the privately insured and 190 percent for Medicare patients, according to the study.
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