Previously, the sites only included quality data for inpatient services. New outpatient and ED measures include:
- Rates of outpatient MRIs for low back pain;
- Rates of outpatient re-tests after a screening mammogram;
- Two ratios that explain how frequently outpatient departments gave patients “double” computed tomography scans when a single scan may be all that is needed;
- Measures that show whether outpatients who are treated for suspected heart attacks receive proven therapies that reduce mortality such as an aspirin at arrival; and
- Measures to determine how well outpatient surgical patients are protected from infection.
“Adding outpatient quality measures to Hospital Compare will give consumers a more complete picture of the quality of care available at local hospitals,” Barry M. Straube, MD, CMS chief medical officer and director of the Agency’s Office of Clinical Standards & Quality, said in the release. “In particular, the heart attack and surgical care outpatient measures can be viewed alongside of the inpatient data we already report for these conditions, thus providing a comprehensive look at what facilities in your area are doing to provide high-quality, high-value care.”
In addition to outpatient care measures, CMS has updated data for outcomes of inpatient hospital care, including new thirty-day mortality rates and thirty-day readmissions rates for inpatients admitted with heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia.
Read the HHS release on hospital outpatient quality data.
