CMS recently updated the star ratings on the Hospital Compare website to help millions of patients and their families learn about the quality of hospitals, compare facilities in their area side-by-side, and ask important questions about care quality when visiting a hospital or other health care provider.
Ratings include the Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating that reflects comprehensive quality information about the care provided at hospitals in the U.S. The new Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating methodology takes 64 existing quality measures already reported on the Hospital Compare website and summarizes them into a unified rating of one to five stars. This overall rating supplements the star ratings currently posted for hospitals on their patient experience of care data based on data from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) Survey. The patient experience of care hospital star ratings were first publicly reported in April 2015. A complete list of measures included in this star rating is provided in the Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating Methodology Report available on QualityNet.
Kate Goodrich, MD, MHS, Director of Center for Clinical Standards and Quality stated in a blog that, “CMS will continue to analyze the star rating data and consider public feedback to make enhancements to the scoring methodology as needed. The star rating will be updated quarterly, and will incorporate new measures as they are publicly reported on the website as well as remove measures retired from the quality reporting programs.”
Additional information can be found at:
Data Brief: Evaluation of National Distributions of Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings
First Release of the Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating on Hospital Compare
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