The state of Wisconsin continues to score well when compared to the rest of the country on the core quality indicators for hospital quality. Admittedly many of these indicators are still only process measures but it is all we have. I would hope we can move to consumer focused outcome data such as medication error rates,surgical infection,mortality and other key indicators. Unfortunately at this point healthcare organizations cannot accurately measure and report these important outcomes.
At www.wchq.org heart surgery mortality rates for some hospitals in the state are now being reported using the Society for Thoracic Surgery(STS) data base. It wasn't easy to get this accomplished as there was a lot of concern from many parties but this is the kind of leadership we need if we are to build a transparent reporting system for cost and quality in America. It's also probably one of the reasons Wisconsin rates number one or two every year on the AHRQ data.
To read the report, click here - http://statesnapshots.ahrq.gov/snaps09/overall_quality.jsp?menuId=5&state=WI&level=0®ion=0&compGroup=N&compRegion=-1
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