This report
is based on information from
Hospital Compare, a website created through the efforts
of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an
agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)
along with the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA). The HQA is a
public-private collaboration established to promote
reporting on hospital quality of care.
Hospital
Compare displays information on 30-day Risk Adjusted Death
(Mortality) Rates for patients with Medicare who were
admitted to the hospital for heart attack and heart failure.
The 30-day period is used because this is the time period
when deaths are most likely to be related to the care
patients received in the hospital. The CMS compiles this
information from claims and enrollment data for patients in
Original (fee-for-service) Medicare. Unlike the rates for
the Process of Care measures, which reflect care for people
in Medicare Advantage plans or people who do not have
Medicare, the mortality rates show information only for
patients in Original Medicare. It does not include people in
Medicare Advantage plans or people who do not have Medicare.
Calculation of Mortality Rates
The 30-day risk-adjusted mortality measures for heart attack
and heart failure are produced from Medicare claims and
enrollment data using a sophisticated statistical model. The
model predicts patient-level deaths for any cause within 30
days of hospital admission for heart attack or heart
failure, whether the patients die while still in the
hospital or die after discharge, and calculates a
"risk-adjusted" hospital mortality rate that can be used to
compare mortality across hospitals. Mortality measures for
heart attack and heart failure based on this model have been
endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF), the non-profit
public-private partnership organization that endorses
national healthcare performance measures.
Mortality Categories
Mortality categories show how hospitals' risk-adjusted
30-Day Death (mortality) rates compare to the rate across
the U.S., after making adjustments for how sick patients
were before they were admitted to the hospital and taking
into account differences in death rates that might be due to
chance.
Hospitals
are shown to be Better or Worse Than U.S. National Rate only
if we can be 95% certain that the difference between their
risk-adjusted death (mortality) rates and the U.S. National
rate is not due to chance. All others are shown in the No
Different Than U.S. National Rate category.
Better
Than U.S. National Rate
Hospitals in the Better Than U.S. National Rate category
have risk-adjusted 30-day death (mortality) rates that are
lower than the U.S. National rate, and we can be 95% certain
that this difference is not due to chance.
No
Different than U.S. National Rate
Many hospitals in the No Different Than U.S. National
Rate category have risk-adjusted 30-day death (mortality)
rates that are about the same as the U.S. National rate.
Other hospitals in this category have rates that are higher
or lower than the U.S. National rate, but we cannot be 95%
certain that these differences are not due to chance. One
cannot be certain about differences when a hospital has very
few relevant patients.
Worse
Than U.S. National Rate
Hospitals in the Worse Than U.S. National Rate category
have risk-adjusted 30-day death (mortality) rates that are
higher than the U.S. National rate, and we can be 95%
certain that this difference is not due to chance.
