A report ranking all 50 states on how well they deliver healthcare estimates that bringing lower-scoring states up to higher-scoring states' standards could save 90,000 lives annually, insure 22 million more people and save Medicare $22 billion.
Released Wednesday, the Commonwealth Fund study, titled Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance, compares each state to benchmarks that have already been achieved in states across the country.
According to the study, the states with top five scores are Hawaii, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, while those with the lowest scores are California, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, said at a June 13 press briefing that although some states ranked high on multiple indictors, the report finds that that no single state or group of states scored top marks in every area. Davis said she hopes the study will prompt states to communicate with each other on better performance measures.
"The key takeaway from today's scorecard is that there is immense variability in access, quality and cost of care in the U.S," Davis said. "Real lives and real dollars could be saved if all states scored higher."
Cathy Schoen, senior vice president of the Commonwealth Fund, said the study is unique in that it looks at 32 measures in five areas of healthcare, including:
• access
• quality
• avoidable hospital use and costs
• equity
• healthy lives
The study found that quality care did not always cost more and that access is directly correlated to quality, Schoen said.
According to Alan Weil, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy, said the report provides a strong business case for solving the question of the uninsured.
"We're all in this together," Weil said. "We pay for the uninsured anyway. Everyone's health suffers when our system fails to meet the needs of a share of the population."
Joel Cantor, director of the Center for State Health Policy said the report suggests that moving toward more universal coverage would be effective in improving care.
Carolyn Clancy, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality announced the release of AHRQ's third annual study of state snapshots on 29 healthcare quality measures.
"The two reports are very complementary," Clancy said. "(The Commonwealth Fund) gives us a very concrete sense of what increments of achievement are achievable right now."
"The bottom line here is we can't improve if we can't measure," Clancy said. "Measurement is only one step. We still have to bring it down to the provider level."