Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente and Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare will take part in the U.S. News Hospital Outcome Data Disclosure Program, a new data-collection initiative designed to take a more complete look at hospitals and provide patients with better information about the hospitals in their communities, U.S. News & World Report announced.
The new program allows participating healthcare organizations to submit comprehensive datasets that go beyond Medicare data directly to U.S. News & World Report to use in evaluating hospitals, according to a news release. The initiative will help U.S. News & World Report come up with a more robust dataset of hospital outcome measures and gain new insights on hospital performance.
The new U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals for Common Care ratings, which will be released in May, depend on a Medicare database called MedPAR, which collects data from reimbursement claims that hospitals file with CMS. However, the information in MedPAR is available only for patients covered by traditional, fee-for-service Medicare. Information on patients 65 and older who are covered by commercial Medicare Advantage plans is incomplete and unaudited. The Hospital Outcome Data Disclosure Program allows U.S. News & World Report to include those patients and their missing data in its analysis.
These new ratings will include such supplemental data from Kaiser Permanente and Intermountain. The new ratings will evaluate hospitals across the country in common high-volume inpatient procedures and conditions including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart bypass surgery, congestive heart failure, hip replacement and knee replacement.
"It's important for consumers to have access to comparative data when making decisions about their healthcare, and we are pleased that U.S. News & World Report has determined a way to better include outcomes from value-based organizations such as Kaiser Permanente in its new ratings," Kaiser Permanente Chairman and CEO Bernard J. Tyson said in a statement.
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