Background Existing publicly-reported readmission measures are condition-specific, representing < 20% of adult hospitalizations. An all-condition measure may better measure quality and promote innovation. Objective To develop an all-condition, hospital-wide readmission measure. Design Measure development Setting 4,821 US hospitals. Patients Medicare Fee for Service (FFS) beneficiaries ≥ 65 years. Measurements Hospital-level, risk-standardized unplanned readmissions within 30 days of discharge. The measure uses Medicare FFS claims and is a composite of five specialty-based risk-standardized rates for medicine, surgery/gynecology, cardiorespiratory, cardiovascular and neurology cohorts. We randomly split the 2007–2008 admissions for development and validation. Models were adjusted for age, principal diagnosis and comorbidity. We examined calibration in Medicare and all-payer data, and compared hospital rankings in the development and validation samples. Results The development dataset contained 8,018,949 admissions associated with 1,276,165 unplanned readmissions (15.9%). The median hospital risk-standardized unplanned readmission rate was 15.8 (range 11.6–21.9). The five specialty cohort models accurately predicted readmission risk in both Medicare and all-payer datasets for average risk patients but slightly overestimated readmission risk at the extremes. Overall hospital risk-standardized readmission rates did not differ statistically in the split samples (p=0.7 for difference in rank) and 76% of hospitals’ validation set rankings were within two deciles of the development rank (24% >2 deciles). Of hospitals ranking in the top or bottom deciles, 90% remained within two deciles (10% >2 deciles), and 82% remained within one decile (18% > 1 decile). Limitations Risk-adjustment was limited to that available in claims data. Conclusions We developed a claims-based hospital-wide unplanned readmission measure for profiling hospitals that produced reasonably consistent results in different datasets and was similarly calibrated in both Medicare and all-payer data. Primary funding source Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Background-Patient outcomes provide a critical perspective on quality of care. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is publicly-reporting 30-day risk-standardized mortality rates (RSMRs) and risk-standardized readmission rates (RSRRs) for patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and heart failure (HF). We provide a national perspective on hospital performance for the 2010 release of these measures.

Background: No state peer review organization has attempted to identify processes of care related to pressure ulcer prediction and prevention in US hospitals.Objective: To profile and evaluate the processes of care for Medicare patients hospitalized at risk for pressure ulcer development by means of the Medicare Quality Indicator System pressure ulcer prediction and prevention module.Methods: A multicenter retrospective cohort study with medical record abstraction was used to obtain a total of 2425 patients aged 65 years and older discharged from acute care hospitals after treatment for pneumonia, cerebrovascular disease, or congestive heart failure. Six processes of care for prevention of pressure ulcers were evaluated: use of daily skin assessment; use of a pressure-reducing device; documentation of being at risk; repositioning for a minimum of 2 hours; nutritional consultation initiated for patients with nutritional risk factors; and staging of pressure ulcer. The associations between processes of care and incidence of pressure ulcer were determined with Kaplan-Meier survival analyses.

Risk-standardized 30-day mortality and, to a lesser extent, readmission rates for patients with pneumonia vary substantially across hospitals and regions and may present opportunities for quality improvement, especially at low performing institutions and areas.

BACKGROUNDThe Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publicly reports risk-standardized mortality rates (RSMRs) within 30-days of admission and, in 2013, risk-standardized unplanned readmission rates (RSRRs) within 30-days of discharge for patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure (HF), and pneumonia. Current publicly reported data do not focus on variation in national results or annual changes.OBJECTIVEDescribe U.S. hospital performance on AMI, HF, and pneumonia mortality and updated readmission measures to provide perspective on national performance variation.DESIGNTo identify recent changes and variation in national hospital-level mortality and readmission for AMI, HF, and pneumonia, we performed cross-sectional panel analyses of national hospital performance on publicly reported measures.PARTICIPANTSFee-for-service Medicare and Veterans Health Administration beneficiaries, 65 years or older, hospitalized with principal discharge diagnoses of AMI, HF, or pneumonia between July 2009 and June 2012. RSMRs/RSRRs were calculated using hierarchical logistic models risk-adjusted for age, sex, comorbidities, and patients’ clustering among hospitals.ResultsMedian (range) RSMRs for AMI, HF, and pneumonia were 15.1% (9.4–21.0%), 11.3% (6.4–17.9%), and 11.4% (6.5–24.5%), respectively. Median (range) RSRRs for AMI, HF, and pneumonia were 18.2% (14.4–24.3%), 22.9% (17.1–30.7%), and 17.5% (13.6–24.0%), respectively. Median RSMRs declined for AMI (15.5% in 2009–2010, 15.4% in 2010–2011, 14.7% in 2011–2012) and remained similar for HF (11.5% in 2009–2010, 11.9% in 2010–2011, 11.7% in 2011–2012) and pneumonia (11.8% in 2009–2010, 11.9% in 2010–2011, 11.6% in 2011–2012). Median hospital-level RSRRs declined: AMI (18.5% in 2009–2010, 18.5% in 2010–2011, 17.7% in 2011–2012), HF (23.3% in 2009–2010, 23.1% in 2010–2011, 22.5% in 2011–2012), and pneumonia (17.7% in 2009–2010, 17.6% in 2010–2011, 17.3% in 2011–2012).ConclusionsWe report the first national unplanned readmission results demonstrating declining rates for all three conditions between 2009–2012. Simultaneously, AMI mortality continued to decline, pneumonia mortality was stable, and HF mortality experienced a small increase.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11606-014-2862-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.