Measures reported on CMS' Hospital Compare website exert strong influence over many hospital leaders' local planning and improvement efforts, according to a recent survey published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Given how little is known about the attitudes of hospital leaders toward existing quality measures, researchers sent questionnaires to senior hospital leaders from a random sample of 630 U.S. hospitals with 380 responding.
Highlighted below are 15 findings from the study.
- More than 70 percent of the leaders surveyed agreed with the statement, "Public reporting stimulates quality improvement activity at my institution" for the mortality, readmission, process and patient experience measures, whereas 65.2 percent and 53.3 percent agreed with the statement for the cost and volume measures, respectively.
- More than 94 percent of the leaders responded in agreement with the statement, "Our hospital is able to influence performance on this measure," when applied to the processes of care and patient experience measures.
- Nearly 90 percent (89.7 percent) of hospital leaders agreed that the institution's reputation was influenced by patient experience measures.
- Roughly 77.4 percent of hospital leaders responded in the affirmative when asked if the hospital's reputation was influenced by patient experience measures on mortality. More than 69 percent agreed for readmission, 76.3 percent for process measures, 66.1 percent for cost measures and 54 percent for volume measures.
- All total, 87.1 percent of hospital leaders reported incorporating performance on publicly reported measures into their hospital's annual goals, 90.2 percent regularly review results with the hospital's board of trustees and 94.3 percent review them with senior clinical and administrative leaders.
- Chief quality officers or vice presidents were less likely than CEOs and CMOS to agree that public reporting stimulates quality improvement and that measured differences are large enough to differentiate among hospitals.
- Hospital leaders are influenced by patient experience measures but expressed concerns regarding their clinical meaningfulness, unintended consequences, and methods of public reporting.
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