Hospital Quality Measures » MatthewD

Wall Street Journal Report: Only One Percent of Hospitals Are Below Average

MatthewD — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:45:26 +0000

Ninety-nine percent of hospital board chairmen think their hospital fares at least as well as a typical hospital on standard quality measures. Among the chairmen of hospitals that perform worst, 100% say their hospital performs at least as well as a typical hospital.

This is what happens when you ask an opinion versus looking at the actual numbers.

Only 1% of Hospitals Are Below Average*

Hospital Quality Reporting Update: Thirteen New Hospitals Added

MatthewD — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:40:37 +0000

We have added thirteen new hospitals to our hospital quality reporting index. Come and check them out and see if your hospital has been listed.

Hospital Quality Reporting Update: Nine New Hospitals

MatthewD — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:34:11 +0000

We have added nine new hospitals to our hospital quality reporting index. Come and check them out and see if your hospital has been listed.

One of the new hospitals, Bromenn Healthcare System does a great job reporting their data through the use of Flash.

Quality Reporting Not a Priority For Hospital Boards

MatthewD — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:35:58 +0000

Health Affairs, The Policy Journal of the Health Sphere, recently provided results on how hospitals prioritize reporting quality information to the public. Based on the results it is quite low on the list of things to accomplish.

We surveyed a nationally representativesample of board chairs of 1,000 U.S. hospitals to understandtheir expertise, perspectives, and activities in clinical quality.We found that fewer than half of the boards rated quality ofcare as one of their two top priorities, and only a minorityreported receiving training in quality. – Health Affairs

Here are some of the results:

44% ranked quality as on of two top priorities of the hospital’s CEO
1/3 of the governing boards received quality training
Online 1/5 considered the board, chairmen or committees as an influential force behind hospital quality

This could explain why so many hospitals do not report quality information on their site, and many of the ones that do report on quality do it poorly.

Vanderbilthealth.com: Great Example of Quality Reporting

MatthewD — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:44:29 +0000

While at the Greystone Internet Healthcare Conference I had the opportunity to listen in on Vanderbilt Medical Center’s Quality Measures presentation. The presentation was interesting and their examples showed how a large medical center can truly explain quality measures to patients. They explained how they engaged with and surveyed many patients asking them what they want to see on a site in regards to quality healthcare information. The center obviously listened based on the great amounts of easy to use information they now have on their site. I would recommend that you check it out and employ some of their solutions on your own site. Your patients will appreciate the effort.

Keep Quality Measures On Your Site

MatthewD — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:00:17 +0000

One other observation we had about quality measure reporting on hospital websites is the amount of hospitals that force people to go somewhere else to get the information. We found in many cases they make visitors to their site click down several levels to get to the “Quality” section and force them to leave the site and go to one of the accreditation/certification sites. At that point the patient then has to do even more work because they are typically sent to the homepage of that new site. Why make it so difficult? Take the time and effort to put it on your own site and then link to it from your key navigation areas.

Being Up Front with Hospital Quality Measures

MatthewD — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:52:35 +0000

It is odd that many, actually most, hospitals hide their quality information from patients. When we die our research of America’s top hospitals we found that many of them have quality data available on their site but for the most part it was nearly impossible to find. We did come across a few cases where one of the links in the main navigation was Quality and it followed the visitor throughout the site. In other cases we saw that a hospital would put it on their homepage but nowhere else. That may be useful if someone comes directly to that hospital’s homepage, but in our search crazed world that does not happen as much in the past. Many times visitors are taken to other key pages of a hospital’s website and not the homepage. Something to think about when trying to put everything on your hospital’s homepage. One other observation that we made as we were doing this research is that if a visitor could not find the link to the quality section they could go in to the About section of the website and many times find it there.

If a hospital goes through the effort of putting their quality measures data on their website they should make it accessible and not force people to have to hunt for the information. After all, they are trying to improve their patient satisfaction scores… so why start off on the wrong foot by making things difficult on your site.

Hospital Collabortion Saves Lives and Money

MatthewD — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:47:12 +0000

Premier Inc. announced today that their QUEST program has saved more than 8,000 lives and $577 million in costs in one year, and that is only with 32 participating hospitals. If non-participating hospitals would have joined in they could have saved 52,760 lives. Does anyone see a problem here? Nearly 53,000 people died last year because there were hospitals that did not participate in a best practice cost reduction and quality improvement initiatives.

“QUEST hospitals are outpacing the performance of others, proving that when hospitals work together in a transparent, collaborative forum, they bring the depth of their shared knowledge to the table,” DeVore continued. “Such collaboration helps participants reliably deliver the most efficient, effective and caring hospital experience for each and every patient, every single time.”

There are two keywords in this quote transparent and collaborative. More lives could be saved if hospitals were more transparent and collaborative with the patient as well as with other medical facilities. Being accountable and reporting quality data on their website would be one way to help everyone out.

The 32 Top Performing Hospitals

32 QUEST hospitals have attained the performance goals in all three areas measured in Year 1: cost, quality and evidence-based care delivery. These top-performing hospitals are:

Alegent Health
- Mercy Hospital – Council Bluffs, Iowa
Alexian Brothers Health System
- St. Alexius Medical Center – Hoffman Estates, Ill.
Aurora Health Care
- Aurora Medical Center in Kenosha, Wis.
- Aurora Medical Center in Oshkosh, Wis.
- Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center – Sheboygan, Wis.
- Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center – Milwaukee
- St. Luke’s South Shore – Cudahy, Wis.
Bon Secours Health System
- Bon Secours St. Francis Health System – Greenville, S.C.
  - St. Francis eastside
  - St. Francis downtown
- Bon Secours Richmond Health System
  - Memorial Regional Medical Center – Mechanicsville, Va.
Charleston Area Medical Center Health System – Charleston, W.Va.
- Charleston Area Medical Center
  - CAMC General Hospital
  - CAMC Memorial Hospital
  - Women and Children’s Hospital
CaroMont Health
- Gaston Memorial Hospital – Gastonia, N.C.
Greenville Hospital System
- Hillcrest Memorial Hospital – Simpsonville, S.C.
Kettering Health Network
- Kettering Medical Center – Kettering, Ohio
- Sycamore Medical Center – Miamisburg, Ohio
- Grandview Medical Center – Dayton, Ohio
- Southview Medical Center – Dayton, Ohio
LaGrange/Troup County Hospital Authority – La Grange, Ga.
Memorial Health University Medical Center – Savannah, Ga.
Meridian Health
- Jersey Shore University Medical Center – Neptune, N.J.
Mountain States Health Alliance
- Indian Path Medical Center – Kingsport, Tenn.
- North Side Hospital – Johnson City, Tenn.
Pallottine Missionary Sisters
- St. Mary’s Medical Center – Huntington, W.Va.
St. Luke’s Hospital & Health Network
- St. Luke’s Quakertown Hospital – Quakertown, Pa.
SSM Health Care
- SSM DePaul Health Center – Bridgeton, Mo.
- SSM St. Mary’s Hospital – Richmond Heights, Mo.
- SSM St. Joseph Health Center – St. Charles, Mo.
Texas Health Resources
- Texas Health Harris Methodist Hurst-Euless-Bedford – Bedford, Texas
- Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Azle – Azle, Texas
- Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Cleburne – Cleburne, Texas
- Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Kaufman – Kaufman, Texas
TriHealth – Cincinnati
- Bethesda North Hospital
- Good Samaritan Hospital