The Department of Health and Human Services will now include quality information about outpatient and emergency department care at hospitals across the United States on its HealthCare.gov website as well as CMS' Hospital Compare website, according to an HHS news release.
Previously, the sites only included quality data for inpatient services. New outpatient and ED measures include:
"Adding outpatient quality measures to Hospital Compare will give consumers a more complete picture of the quality of care available at local hospitals," Barry M. Straube, MD, CMS chief medical officer and director of the Agency's Office of Clinical Standards & Quality, said in the release. "In particular, the heart attack and surgical care outpatient measures can be viewed alongside of the inpatient data we already report for these conditions, thus providing a comprehensive look at what facilities in your area are doing to provide high-quality, high-value care."
In addition to outpatient care measures, CMS has updated data for outcomes of inpatient hospital care, including new thirty-day mortality rates and thirty-day readmissions rates for inpatients admitted with heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia.
Read the HHS release on hospital outpatient quality data.
Previously, the sites only included quality data for inpatient services. New outpatient and ED measures include:
- Rates of outpatient MRIs for low back pain;
- Rates of outpatient re-tests after a screening mammogram;
- Two ratios that explain how frequently outpatient departments gave patients "double" computed tomography scans when a single scan may be all that is needed;
- Measures that show whether outpatients who are treated for suspected heart attacks receive proven therapies that reduce mortality such as an aspirin at arrival; and
- Measures to determine how well outpatient surgical patients are protected from infection.
"Adding outpatient quality measures to Hospital Compare will give consumers a more complete picture of the quality of care available at local hospitals," Barry M. Straube, MD, CMS chief medical officer and director of the Agency's Office of Clinical Standards & Quality, said in the release. "In particular, the heart attack and surgical care outpatient measures can be viewed alongside of the inpatient data we already report for these conditions, thus providing a comprehensive look at what facilities in your area are doing to provide high-quality, high-value care."
In addition to outpatient care measures, CMS has updated data for outcomes of inpatient hospital care, including new thirty-day mortality rates and thirty-day readmissions rates for inpatients admitted with heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia.
Read the HHS release on hospital outpatient quality data.