Evaluating Hospital Quality Data Is Part Of The Evolution Of Health Care Today

The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers (HCAHPS) began in 2006 with a 27 question survey that is distributed to discharged patients. This survey process was originally designed to help patients compare hospitals in their area to be able to make an informed choice for their healthcare needs. In January 2013, five additional questions were added to the survey. Beginning this year, Medicare reimbursement rates to a hospital are tied to the hospital’s patient satisfaction scores. Therefore, hospitals are continually looking for ways to improve

The health care market has expanded over the past few decades and diverse healthcare providers have tried to expand their market share. However not everyone is looking to provide the best care available for their patients. This is why tools like the Hospital Comparison website collects data from multiple hospitals and publishes them to the public. The free tool tries to empower patients and at the same time encourages quality of care. Patients now have the power to seek and choose the best care available.

Healthcare is in a constant state of change with movements that impact rates, access and quality of care. Hospitals have become more competitive due to the rising cost of care delivery and the reduction in reimbursement from payers. This causes difficulty in delivering quality care to all patients, which is being measured by mandated patient perception surveys, Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS). HCAHPS scores are part of value

The surveys are meant to be specific and consistent and are not just used to evaluate the organizations for improvement but are also to educate in the best practice standards adopted throughout health care and to help staff in ways to continually improve an organizations performance. For this purpose, in 1996 the Quality Check website was launched to help the Joint Commission provide information regarding the performance of accredited organizations to consumers and organizations. Users are able to search for accredited or certified organizations; they can locate organizations by either type of service or geographical area and lists of certified organizations as well as a hospital’s performance measures can be obtained.

Quality can be difficult to measure, which is what has halted the strong pursuit of quality in the past. Healthcare organizations use quality assessment to measure quality against some established standard. This includes “defining how quality is to be determined, identification of specified variables... and the collection of appropriate data to make the measurement possible (Shi, 2015, pg. 493). The Affordable Care Act set new standards and incentives for achieving quality of care. This includes offering Medicare reimbursements for hospitals with low readmission rates, and ensuring that (not-for-profit) hospitals complete a community health needs assessment (to ensure that the needs of the community are being met) and by implementing HCAHPS scores, which measures efficiency and efficacy of care using patient surveys. HCAHPS and hospital readmission good example of how quality of care can be measured in efficiency as well as

The purpose of this paper is to explain what the website Hospital Compare is about. The paper will reveal the agencies that are behind the website and it will also give a little insight about how the information is chosen that is available to the public. Also, you will learn about Ohio Valley Medical Centers (OVMC) ratings and some areas of the medical center that could use a bit of improvement. This paper will also include some strategies that OVMC could use to help improve their ratings.

In the Patient Survey Results, Medicare.gov (2017) states, “HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) is a national survey that asks patients about their experiences during a recent hospital stay. Use the results shown here to compare hospitals based on 11 important hospital quality topics.” I was very proud to see Smyth County Community Hospital as the only over all 4-star rated hospital out of the three chosen. CTCH and WCCH both have an overall 3-star rating from their survey results. By the survey results, areas of focus for all three hospitals would be to focus on providing additional education to ensure the patient understands their care when they left the hospital. SCCH stayed above the Virginia average in all areas, were WCCH and CTCH fell below the Virginia and National average in 3 areas. In Timely and Effective Care survey, Medicare.gov (2017) states, “These measures show how often hospitals provide care that research shows get the best results for patients with certain conditions. This information can help you compare which hospitals give recommended care most often as part of the overall care they

The Computerized Provider Order Entry is effective program to help organization improve quality measures and financial margins. The CPOE is effective program; which monitors a hospitals current performance and calculates methods of improvement. For example, Trinity Hospital a leader in clinical intelligence to track and report across it members hospitals on systems wide quality measures (Balgrosky, 2015). The Clinical Provider Order Entry will help patients compare programs graded by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid and Hospital Quality Assurance. This program will further enhance the patient-centric model because patients will have comprehensive comparison of hospitals to make informed medical decision as to where they would like to receive treatment. The quality measures monitor readmission, complications, patient’s experience surveys and other categories. Patients are interested in receiving health care in top-notched care facilities that address their needs. Consumer needs are very important because translating into referrals by word-of-mouth or rankings. Technology plays a major role in an organization's success with supports Judy Murphy idea of enhancing patient’s health information technology

Quality measures are strategies that gauge, evaluate or compute health care processes, results, discernments, patient insight, and administrative structure. In addition, quality measures are frameworks that are connected with the capacity to deliver first-class health care and/or that are able to identify with one or more quality objectives for medicinal services. These objectives include: compelling, protected, effective, quiet focused, impartial, and opportune consideration. Quality measures can be used to measure quality improvement, public reporting, and pay-for-reporting programs specific for health care providers (CMS.gov, 2016). There are an assortment of quality measures in which health care organizations can use to determine the status of the care they are delivering. Many are appropriate, but few are chosen for this research paper. Among them are: National Health Care Surveys, Hospital IQR Programs, Scorecards, and Political, Power, and Perception/Data for Decision-making tools.

Through statistical analysis, there were ten AHRQ inpatient quality indicators that are statistically different from that of the reference population. To determine which ones were significant, the reference population was compared to the risk-adjusted confidence interval. Those whose reference population was outside the risk-adjusted confidence interval were deemed as significantly different. These ten indicators are listed below in Table 1.

The pros of the hospital rating and demand transparency are that it educate the community about the quality and safety of a hospital and the best performing healthcare. It enables the high performing hospital to be recognized, and it provides the community with an opportunity to evaluate the health plans that gives most effective care. The information within the data is critical to the public since they are educative, thus limiting the chances of a person of selecting on a poorly performing health care ("Reports on Hospital Performance", 2017). The rating enables the poorly performing health care to improve their operations so as to be effective in the health sector. However, the cons are that the given information provided in the hospital

Time and again, hospitals are often called upon to improve the quality of its various health care activities in order to better serve patients and immediate communities. A quality improvement plan thus helps in the selection of high priority areas and the utilization of evidence-based practices in conducting the improvement (Berenguer et al., 2010). In view of the healthcare improvement needs of Sunlight Hospital, this paper seeks to classify and justify five measurements of quality of care in a hospital, specify the four main features in a health care organization that can be used in the design of a quality improvement plan, and suggest the salient reasons quality of care would add value and create a competitive advantage

Examining planning for and effectively measuring the health care quality indicators make healthcare quality more transparent and provide information for quality improvement programs and initiatives in the healthcare system.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have recently begun requiring hospitals to report to the public how they are doing on patient care. Brown, Donaldson and Storer Brown (2008) introduce and explain how facilities can use quartile dashboards to

Quality is one of the most essential elements of healthcare. As stated by the Agency of Health Research and Quality, “Everyday, millions of Americans receive high-quality health care that helps to maintain or restore their health and ability to function” (Agency of Health Research and Quality, 2014). Improvements have become vital to the success of health care organizations and in the Healthcare Quality Book, it is explained that quality in the U.S. healthcare system is not at the standard that it should be (Ransom, Joshi, Nash & Ransom, 2008). Although this has been a reoccurring issue, attempts to fix the insufficiency have been less successful than expected.