Cooperating for better care.

mortality rate

Tag Archives

Study: Publishing mortality rates doesn’t do much

 

 

Publicizing hospitals’ mortality rates doesn’t do much for outcomes, says a new study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Fierce Healthcare reports  that “{r}esearchers analyzed data publicly reported by hospitals on their care processes for one or more condition under the {Medicare{} Hospital Compare program. This criterion encompassed about 85 percent of acute care hospitals nationwide. The research team next used inpatient hospitalization files for fee-for-service Medicare patients to determine the average difference in mortality rates between January 2005, when the program began, and November 2012 for three common conditions: congestive heart failure, pneumonia and acute myocardial infarction.

“Based on their analysis, they found no improvement in 30-day mortality rates even as the program took hold. Changes in mortality rates, they wrote, suggest public reporting may in fact have slowed the ongoing drop in mortality rates among Medicare beneficiaries rather than improved them. The researchers also suggested any benefit to public reporting programs may take longer to manifest within the outcomes data, necessitating further study down the line. …”

 

 

 


Contact Info

info@cmg625.com

(617) 230-4965

Wellesley, Mass