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.
Information about Hospital Performance
Hospital performance rates tell you the proportion of cases
where a hospital provided the recommended process of care.
Only patients meeting the inclusion criteria for a measure
are included in the calculation of the rate for a measure. A
rate of 88% means that the hospital provided the recommended
process of care 88% of the time. For example, the rates for
initial antibiotic timing tell you the percentage of
patients who received their first dose of antibiotics within
four hours of arrival to the hospital. The ultimate goal for
all measures listed is 100%. Hospitals with effective
quality improvement programs are continually working toward
this goal. The information posted on this website comes from
the quality data submitted by hospitals to the QIO Clinical
Data Warehouse for inpatient discharges. Except where noted,
all measures reflect six months of experience, January to
June 2004.
Information about participating hospitals and hospitals
not included
Many hospitals reporting data in Hospital Compare have been
providing information through the HQA initiative since
November 2003. This tool (March 2005) presents data from
hospitals that volunteered to participate in the initiative
and submitted data for public reporting. Most of these were
short-term acute care hospitals that, by providing
information on ten measures identified by the Secretary of
HHS, were eligible to receive an incentive payment for
voluntary submission of data that was established by Section
501(b) of the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA). A
substantial proportion of these hospitals also volunteered
to provide information for Hospital Compare on additional
measures, beginning with discharges in April 2004.
Hospital Compare also reflects data submitted voluntarily by
critical access hospitals that are not eligible for the
additional incentive payment established by the MMA.
Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) are small, isolated rural
facilities. For these facilities, any hospital that
volunteers to participate and submits cases for one or more
measures can choose to have any or all of its data displayed
on this website.
In addition to the CAH facilities, psychiatric, children’s,
and rehabilitation hospitals have also volunteered to
participate in the HQA initiative. Despite volunteering to
submit data on quality for public reporting, these hospitals
are not currently represented because the clinical
conditions assessed by the current measures (heart attack,
heart failure and pneumonia) are less commonly treated in
those settings. These hospitals may have data included at
some point in the future when applicable quality measures
are added.
Measure
The name of the quality measure.
Condition
The name of the condition of the
corresponding quality measure.
Number of Patients
The size of the data sample for
the hospital quality measure.
Hospital Footnotes
The numbers of footnotes that
are associated with the hospital's score for the quality
measure. Click column header for a pop-up with
footnote definitions.
Hospital Score
The score that the hospital achieved for the
quality measure. The score is expressed as a
percentage of the sample size that was measured.
National Average
The average score achieved by
all hospitals in the nation for the quality measure.
National
90th Percentile
The score achieved by the Top 10% of all hospitals in
the nation. The Top 10% of hospitals achieved scores
equal to or greater than the score reported.
State
Average
The average score achieved by all hospitals
in the state for the quality measure.
