The All-New Bunrab

U.S. Health Experts Rate Hospitals' Cardiac Care

June 22 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. health officials have rated the nation's hospitals on their treatment of heart attack and heart failure and found that most meet the national average for quality of care.

Scoring 4,700 centers across the country, experts at the Department of Health and Human Services took into account heart-related death rates as well as the mix of patients at each hospital to come up with their findings. Speaking during a Thursday teleconference, they said most hospitals fell within the national average, although dozens performed either better or worse.

And thanks to a new federal Web site launched Thursday, U.S. consumers can now go online and check their local hospital's performance when it comes to heart care.

"The steps we are taking today mean that patients will have the information they need to make decisions about their own care," Mike Leavitt, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said during an afternoon teleconference.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Web site, http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov, now lists hospital mortality rates for more than 4,500 U.S. hospitals. The statistics involve deaths from heart attacks and heart failure for Medicare patients who died within 30 days after their hospital stay.

"For the first time, Medicare and the Hospital Quality Alliance are providing the public with information about two important yardsticks of care -- mortality rates for heart attack and heart failure," Leavitt said.

"This is important," Leavitt added, "because for most of its history, Medicare has been paying for services, but not paying for results. The problem with that approach is that it doesn't provide any incentive to improve the quality or lower the cost."

Leavitt noted that in 2006, 36 million people visited the Medicare Web site looking for comparative health information. "When that many people start comparing the quality and cost of health care, the result can only be better care at lower cost," he said.

In terms of its functionality, consumers can go to the Web site and select hospitals, as well as specific criteria of care, to view. Hospitals are rated against the national average for care in each category.

"The information is displayed in three categories: no different from the U.S. national average; better than the U.S. national average; worse than the U.S. national average," Herb Kuhn, acting deputy administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said during the teleconference.

In addition, Kuhn expects that hospitals will use this information to improve their quality of care and patient outcomes. "By bringing this information forward, we can shed a little sunshine and provide a catalyst to push for improvement in health care," he said.

Kuhn said his agency has also contacted local Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) who will work with hospitals that currently have cardiovascular mortality rates that are worse than the national average to help them improve their care.

"We are proud that Medicare officials have turned to the QIOs to address this very serious problem," David Schulke, executive vice president of the American Health Quality Association (AHQA), said in a prepared statement.

"Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has authorized an additional $2,000 per hospital to spend on efforts to help these hospitals," Schulke said. "In many states, it may turn out that this amount is a down payment on the actual work that will be required to identify and change care processes necessary to prevent future deaths," he said.

The agency is also using the Web site to post its first annual update of pricing and volume information on certain elective hospital procedures.


SOURCES: June 21, 2007, teleconference with: Mike Leavitt, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Herb Kuhn, Acting Deputy Administrator, U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; statement, American Health Quality Association