Connecticut's not-for-profit hospitals are committed to public accountability and to providing the highest quality healthcare for every patient. This commitment is exemplified by the fact that Connecticut was the first state in which all hospitals volunteered to participate in the National Voluntary Hospital Reporting Initiative by releasing their hospital performance data to the public on a federal website, and Connecticut is still one of only a few states with 100% participation (see CMS website).
CHA and its members are working actively with partners including CMS, the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH), the American Hospital Association (AHA), and Qualidigm to design a system for public reporting of hospital quality that will provide consumers with the consistent, structured information they need to make informed healthcare decisions and will contribute to improving the quality of patient care in Connecticut.
As mandated by state law, the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) has prepared a report to the General Assembly that provides comparative information about hospital clinical performance. The report compares the performance of Connecticut's adult acute care hospitals in treating three of the most common medical conditions requiring hospitalization - heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia. The report is available on the DPH website.
Connecticut hospitals track several measures, including quality of care for patients diagnosed with a heart attack, heart failure, or pneumonia, which are three common and costly medical conditions for which people go to the hospital. Hospital performance rates are provided for ten clinical measures that focus on treatments for these three conditions. Statewide reporting concluded that although Connecticut's median is higher than the national median for reported measures, there is still room for improvement.