The Wisconsin Hospital Association has released a new hospital-specific, three-star quality rating system to CheckPoint, a web-based resource providing quality and safety data. The new rating system enables consumers to more quickly and easily interpret information related to hospital quality.
The calculation that supports the system combines several individual, but related, quality measures into a single overall star rating to summarize the quality of care for a specific medical condition or service. Star ratings are displayed for conditions and procedures related to hip and knee surgery, heart conditions, pneumonia, surgery, patient satisfaction and 10 other dimensions of care.
Since 2004, CheckPoint has given consumers a snapshot of Wisconsin hospitals’ performance in key areas. Today, 127 acute care Wisconsin hospitals and some specialty hospitals are publicly reporting data on more than 90 measures to the CheckPoint program.
This information can be used to see how often each hospital provides recommended care for patients with certain conditions or the progress hospitals have made toward national patient safety goals. Consumers can use the information to compare how different hospitals perform, while hospitals can use the data to benchmark their progress toward national quality and safety goals.
“Public reporting has advanced and accelerated quality improvement in Wisconsin. It is certainly a factor in Wisconsin being consistently ranked as one of the top states in the country based on the quality of our health care,” said WHA chief quality officer Kelly Court. “The information on CheckPoint helps consumers make informed decisions about their hospital care and engages Wisconsin hospitals in early quality improvement.”
Data for the measures comes from multiple sources and is updated quarterly to ensure access to the most recent data available.
For more information on CheckPoint, visit www.WiCheckPoint.org.
