Joint Commission Recognizes 1,224 Hospitals for Outstanding Performance on Key Quality Measures

Hospitals across the United States continue to improve their rates for complying with evidence-based care processes according to “America’s Hospitals: Improving Quality and Safety: The Joint Commission’s 2014 Annual Report.” The results, released today, are based on data reported by more than 3,300 Joint Commission accredited hospitals in 2013. These hospitals represent rural and urban locations, all U.S. regions, and all sizes and types of hospitals, from small critical access hospitals to large academic medical centers.

The release of this report provides the opportunity to gauge progress in health care quality improvement which The Joint Commission has been tracking over the past 12 years. The collective performance of these accredited hospitals on individual accountability measures has steadily improved over the past few years. The data released today show improved care for pneumonia, children’s asthma, surgical care, heart failure and other common conditions. This demonstrates the nationwide implementation of evidence-based quality improvement processes is working.

“Today we celebrate the successes that represent improvements in the quality of patient care at Joint Commission accredited hospitals across this country. America’s hospitals continue to make dramatic strides toward becoming more reliable and we continue to encourage them to do so. Each year, the quality standards’ bar has been raised and hospitals have responded to the challenge,” says Mark R. Chassin, MD, FACP, MPP, MPH, president and CEO of the Joint Commission. “We applaud their commitment to deliver the right treatment, in the right way, at the right time for patients. We also look forward to continuing to work together to accelerate further healthcare improvement.”

In addition, 1,224 of the hospitals that reported data in 2013 have earned recognition by The Joint Commission’s Top Performer on Key Quality Measures® program, this represents an 11 percent increase from last year. That means, 36.9 percent of all Joint Commission-accredited hospitals reporting accountability measure performance data for 2013 are “Top Performer” hospitals, and 718 hospitals missed achieving Top Performer recognition by only a slight margin.
The Top Performer program identifies hospitals with extraordinary performance on very important measures of quality; however, it is not a rating of all aspects of quality of care provided in hospitals. The designation is based on performance related to accountability measures for heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, perinatal care, surgical care, children’s asthma care, inpatient psychiatric services, venous thromboembolism (VTE) care, stroke care, and immunization.

To become a 2013 Top Performer on Key Quality Measures hospitals must have:
• Achieved a cumulative performance of 95 percent or above across all reported accountability measures;
• Achieved a performance of 95 percent or above on each and every reported accountability measure where there were at least 30 denominator cases; and
• Had at least one core measure set that had a composite rate of 95 percent or above, and within that measure set, all applicable individual accountability measures had a performance rate of 95 percent or above.

In order to further improve performance, the required number of selected core measure sets for which a hospital must submit data to the Joint Commission increased from four to six, effective January 1, 2014. By raising the bar, the Joint Commission is helping its accredited hospitals monitor and improve performance in more clinical conditions and patient populations. For quality, safety and patient satisfaction results for specific hospitals, visit www.qualitycheck.org.

Source: The Joint Commission