Quality and Safety
The new ratings are based on results tied to 64 measures that gauge care, readmissions, patient safety, financial management and imaging.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Wednesday released its star ratings for individual providers on its Hospital Compare website.
Though finances are a great motivator to integrate patient care and focus on quality and outcomes, said Glenn Hirsch, MD, associate professor of medicine and clinical director in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
While most hospitals have contingency plans in place in case something happens to their electronic health records, less than three-quarters of those surveyed by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General have plans that address testing and revision procedures -- a requirement under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
AHA among groups concerned that the methodology used does not account for socioeconomic factors affecting patient outcomes.
The newest ACO program by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services offers higher opportunities for incentive payments if participating providers agree to take on more risk.
After two dozen infections were reported in French and Dutch hospitals, the company alerted European customers in January 2013 that a scope it manufactured could become contaminated.
Government says the ratings, which will award between one and five stars to each hospital, will be more useful to consumers than its current mishmash of more than 100 individual metrics, many of which deal with technical matters. The hospital industry, however, fears the ratings will be misleading and oversimplify the many types of care at the institutions.
One in three deaths are caused by heart attacks and strokes, resulting in over $300 billion in healthcare costs each year.
Teaching hospitals had slightly lower star ratings than non-teaching hospitals, while critical access hospitals showed high marks.