“We found little evidence of a consistent relationship between hospital compliance with processes of care and operative mortality rate,” authors of the study wrote in the Archives of Surgery. Therefore, “currently available information on the Hospital Compare website will not help patients identify hospitals with better outcomes for high-risk surgery.”
Hospitals that scored high in the Hospital Compare survey did, however, have one distinction — their patients had a lower risk of having an “extended stay.”
The study focused on six types of surgery with a high risk of death or complications: aortic aneurysm repair, aortic valve repair, heart bypass, mitral valve repair and esophageal & pancreatic procedures.
Researchers noted CMS only collects data on “low-leverage” safety measures that aren’t good indicators of surgical quality and advised CMS to find better measures and “devote greater attention to profiling hospitals based on outcomes.” Previous studies have also questioned CMS’s measurements.
In response, CMS said the Archives study focused on a period when the process measurements had just begun and that the agency plans to report more outcome measures in the future.
Read the Wall Street Journal report on process of care measures.
Read more coverage on process of care measures:
– Hospitals Can Now Preview Medicare Quality Data
– CMS Delays Reporting on Hospital-Acquired Infections
– 5 Critical Steps to Meet IPPS Reporting Requirements and Avoid Penalties
