In Pursuit Of Hospital Quality: Creating Effective Performance Measures And Transparency In Health Care

When Garrison Keillor of “Prairie Home Companion” fame welcomes his radio audience to Lake Wobegon, his fictional Minnesota town, he describes it as a place where, “all the children are above average.” When one of us or our loved ones goes to a hospital for care, we expect that facility to be “above average” too. Sometimes we are able to choose the hospital where we seek care; sometimes, due to an emergency, we have no choice. Either way, we depend on the professionalism of the hospital and its clinicians to provide high quality care and keep us safe. Reports by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and other research surfaced a decade and a half ago indicating that patients could not always be confident in the quality or safety of hospital care, and that too frequently in America hospital care was wanting. The IOM made a strong case that American hospitals needed to improve performance and put greater effort into preventing harm to patients. The IOM also made it clear that clinicians and providers were not sufficiently accountable for the services rendered, or the safety of their hospitals, and that the provision of care and its outcomes were not generally transparent. The root notion underlying IOM’s recommendations was that performance measurement and reporting of the results would fuel needed improvement. Much progress has been made since these troublesome reports. However, to expand and sustain progress, efforts that have been taken by the public and private sect...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Featured Health Professionals Hospitals Medicare Organization and Delivery Payment Policy Population Health Quality big data Charles Kahn Hospital Care Hospital Quality Alliance IOM Metrics Patient Safety Source Type: blogs