(Go directly to the hospital quality data.)
Using Hospital Quality of Care Scores to Get Better Care
Quality scores on this website tell you how well hospitals in West Michigan care for patients with a wide range of health problems. The information can be used to:
Help you choose a hospital for yourself,
Provide useful information for your loved ones if they need hospital care,
Encourage hospitals to improve their quality, and
Help everyone learn more about hospital quality.
Don’t people get good care in any hospital their doctor recommends? Here are the facts:
All hospitals do not provide the same quality of care. Some hospitals are better than others.
A particular hospital might do a very good job of caring for patients with some health problems and not such a good job caring for patients with other health problems.
Whenever anyone goes to the hospital, there is a chance they could get a new health problem while getting treatment for an existing problem.
Hospitals vary in how well they protect patients from these risks.
Your doctor, or the specialist or surgeon he or she recommends, may be highly skilled, but hospital quality also depends on how well all the hospital staff, such as the nurses, take care of you, and on how well the hospital is organized.
Given those facts, our goal is to give you information you can use to increase your chances of getting the best possible hospital care when you need it.
What can you do?
You can use the hospital quality scores on this website to make comparisons. Talk with your doctor about these scores.
Here are things to know:
These scores use data provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services which collects hospital performance information through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). You can look at this data for hospitals throughout the country by going to www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.
Understanding the Hospital Scores
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Hospital Quality Alliance, and hospitals across the nation are working together to create and publicly report hospital quality information. This information measures how well hospitals care for their patients, regardless of whether the care was paid for by Medicare, Medicaid, or a private health insurance plan.
The hospital quality scores on this website tell how well hospitals are doing at providing recommended care for patients with certain common conditions. Research has shown that these treatments provide the best results for most patients with those conditions and are an important part of the patients' overall care.
You should know, however, that a hospital's quality is more than just its scores on these measures. Hospitals provide care for other illnesses and conditions for which measures are still under development. A hospital should be able to tell you what steps it is taking to improve its care. The information you will find on this website is intended to help you when you talk with your physician or hospital about how you can get the care you need.
PROCESS OF CARE MEASURES
A process of care measure shows how often hospitals give recommended treatments known to get the best results for patients with certain medical conditions or surgical procedures. Information about these treatments are taken from the patients’ records and converted into a percentage. This is one way to compare the quality of care that hospitals give. The higher the score/percentage, the better the care.
The hospital process of care measures include:
(click here for a description of each process of care measure)
The measures are based on scientific evidence about treatments that are known to get the best results. Health care experts and researchers are constantly evaluating the evidence to make sure that guidelines and measures are kept up-to-date. Sometimes, guidelines and measures are revised to reflect new evidence. The HQA expects to increase the number of measures and the types of conditions and treatments that hospitals will report over time.
OUTCOME OF CARE MEASURES
These show what happened after patients with certain conditions received hospital care. The death rates focus on whether patients died within 30 days of their hospitalization. The rates of readmission focus on whether patients were hospitalized again within 30 days. Death rates and rates of readmission show whether a hospital is doing its best to prevent complications, teach patients at discharge, and ensure patients make a smooth transition to their home or another setting such as a nursing home. These scores will show a hospital as BETTER, SAME OR WORSE than the national average.
Outcome of care measures include:
(click here for a description of the outcome of care measures)
The hospital death rates and rates of readmission are based on people with Medicare who are 65 and older. These rates are calculated using Medicare enrollment and claims records, and a complex statistical procedure. The death rates and rates of readmission are risk adjusted, meaning that the calculations take into account how sick patients were when they went in for their initial hospitalization. When the rates are risk-adjusted, it helps make comparisons fair and meaningful.
PATIENT HOSPITAL EXPERIENCE SCORES
HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) is a national, standardized survey of hospital patients. HCAHPS (pronounced "H-caps") was created to publicly report the patient’s perspective of hospital care. The survey asks a random sample of recently discharged patients about important aspects of their hospital experience. High scores are best.
(click here for a description of the patient hospital experience questions)
HCAHPS was developed by a partnership of public and private organizations. Development of the patient survey was funded by the Federal government, specifically the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
For more on HCAHPS information, please visit the official HCAHPS website: www.hcahpsonline.org.
Source & Reporting Period
The West Michigan hospital data is part of the national database, Hospital Compare, at www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov Most data reflect hospital reports for the period January 2008 - December 2008 and are updated quarterly. The readmission and mortality data are from July 2005 - December 2008 and are updated annually. This website will be updated at least two times per year.
Scores posted are current as of 11/23/09, and reflect the current postings on the national database.
If a hospital is not listed for any particular measure, it means that a score is not available. This may be due to low numbers that are not statistically reliable or other reasons.
(Go directly to the hospital quality data.)