HEALTH COUNCIL RELEASES DATA ON HOSPITAL PERFORMANCE

Project Brings Local Hospitals Together to Improve Quality Community-Wide

In a voluntary move, nineteen area hospitals working together in a quality improvement collaborative today released a comprehensive report on each hospital’s performance compared to other participants and to state and national benchmarks.

The Greater Cincinnati Health Council, which works with members to improve the quality and cost-efficiency of health care in the region, is releasing the report on behalf of the participating hospitals. The report covers care for full year 2005. The hospitals have been working for the past eighteen months to track data on specific outcomes and process of care measures in order to identify best practices and improve patient care across the community.

“This is a bold step,” said Colleen O’Toole, PhD, Health Council president. “We know of few such efforts across the country in which large groups of hospitals have voluntarily released data on their own performance directly to the public. This initiative complements the many efforts every area hospital has underway to improve quality and is another example of their deep commitment to public accountability and to excellent patient care.”

For each of the nineteen hospitals, the following indicators are included in the report:

• Length of stay for nine conditions such as heart attack, stroke and pneumonia (shorter length of stay usually indicates a more favorable outcome)
• Mortality for the same nine conditions
• How often hospitals follow eight recommended care guidelines for heart attack
• How often hospitals follow four recommended guidelines for congestive heart failure

When possible, the report also compares area hospitals to a community average as well as state and national averages. For heart attack, for example, when compared to the nation as a whole Greater Cincinnati hospitals had a higher percentage of following recommended care guidelines in six of eight indicators. When compared to state averages for heart attack recommended care, Greater Cincinnati hospitals also performed equal to or higher than the state rate in six of eight indicators. For congestive heart failure, area hospitals performed better than national averages in three of four areas of recommended care but performed better than state averages in only one area. Mortality rates vary by hospital and by condition, but for the majority of the nine conditions in the report, most area hospitals performed “as predicted” for their mix of patients.

“This is important information for patients, and we hope that people will study the indicators and talk to their doctor to determine how this information might be helpful to them in light of any treatment they or a loved one might need,” said Robert Graham, MD, Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, medical consultant to the project.

“The indicators focus on some of the most common and costly conditions that hospitals treat,” Dr. Graham said. “The hospitals are rated on care guidelines that are widely accepted across the country as best practices by such organizations as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program/American Osteopathic Association.

“This report is not about individual numbers,” O’Toole noted. “It’s really about what hospitals do with the data. The purpose of the quality improvement project is not to single out any hospital as ‘’best’ or ‘worst.’ It is about working together to make continual changes that improve care. This report looks at a given hospital at one point in time. As they learn from one another and implement changes, the idea is that all provide better and better care for patients. Collaboration is a cornerstone of this effort.

“By sharing best practices through this project, many lives are already being saved,” O’Toole noted. “This effort not only sets the bar higher for each participating hospital. It raises the bar for the entire community.”