Research Shows Wide Variation in Quality of Care Provided by Health Sytems Across the Country

May 15, 2008

Easton, MD and Falls Church, VA - May 15, 2008:  Research published today in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety shows significant variation in the quality of care provided by health systems across the country.

Researchers, Steve Hines, PhD, Principal at The Lewin Group and Maulik Joshi, DrPH, President and CEO of the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement, analyzed data from over 70 h ealth systems, representing more than 1,500 hospitals in the United States.  Variation on quality scores in 19 publicly reported quality measures for health systems was substantial - ranging from 70% to 94% overall.  Additionally, for-profit health systems and systems that are more decentralized were appreciably lower in the quality of care scores for pneumonia, heart failure, heart attack and surgical care.

In the findings, not-for-profit health systems had on average quality scores 7% higher than for-profit health systems and more centralized health systems had 5% higher overall quality scores than decentralized health systems.

"Although we are learning more everyday about the quality of care individual hospitals provide, relatively little is known about how multiple-hospital health systems compare in quality," note Dr. Hines and Dr. Joshi.  "This is the first study that we know of, that examines how quality differs in the most commonly measured clinical areas for health systems, which is the most dominant hospital structure in our country," Dr. Hines and Dr. Joshi added.

"System leaders can use this information to compare their performance to that of other systems and to assess how well their processes and infrastructure are working to assure high quality patient care.  While more research is needed to understand the best ways for systems to drive quality improvement, results suggest some systems have been far better at this than others."  

The article lists the top 5 and bottom 5 performing health systems nationally.  To get a full list ranking the 73 largest health systems, contact Maulik Joshi at mjoshi@nrhi.org.

Click here to view the article.