CMS Hospital Compare Tool Adds Outpatient Quality Measures
The Department of Health and Human Services has added information about the quality of care in U.S. hospital outpatient and emergency departments to its HealthCare.gov consumer website. The information includes data on treatment for heart attacks and outpatient surgery and on the use of imaging technology, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) scans. The same information is available on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Hospital Compare website, which previously had provided only inpatient quality-of-care data.
The outpatient quality measures include:
- The rates of outpatient MRIs for low back pain and of outpatient retests after a screening mammogram
- Two ratios that explain how often outpatient departments gave patients two CT scans when one might be all that was needed
- Whether outpatients treated for suspected heart attacks received proven therapies that reduce mortality, such as aspirin at arrival
- How well outpatient surgical patients are protected from infection
CMS also has updated data for outcomes of inpatient hospital care, including new 30-day mortality rates and 30-day readmission rates for inpatients admitted with heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia. These rates include claims data from July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2009. Both sets of inpatient measures are risk-adjusted and take into account previous health problems to “level the playing field” among hospitals and help ensure accuracy in performance reporting. Also included on the website are 10 patient satisfaction measures, 25 process of care measures, three children’s asthma care measures, the volume of certain hospital procedures performed, and conditions treated for Medicare patients and what Medicare pays for those services.
Posted on 7/8/2010 11:20:58 AM
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