The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs has discontinued its star ratings system in an effort to improve transparency and allow veterans seeking healthcare to more easily compare VA and non-VA facilities.
The star ratings system, developed as an internal tool, enabled veterans to compare quality and performance at VA facilities.
But the ratings did not "provide insight as to how our hospitals stack up against nearby non-VA facilities and are therefore of little value in helping veterans make informed healthcare decisions," VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said in a news release.
Instead, each VA hospital's website now features links to tools that will allow users to compare wait times, quality of medical care and patient experience ratings at facilities in their local area.
The VA will, however, continue to publicly release its Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning data that is used to internally manage hospital performance within the VA's health system. Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning data assesses 60 quality metrics, overall efficiency and physician capacity.