Frequency: Periodically
Measure Type: Process, Cost, Patient Satisfaction
The state of Vermont has provided annual comparison reports on Vermont hospitals, including quality of care, patient satisfaction, and cost of care. They offer side-by-side data for all hospitals.
Six categories are listed for their quality of care: heart attack care, heart failure, pneumonia, infection reporting, and nurse staffing. Volume and mortality are available for the following procedures: esophageal resection, pancreatic resection, abdominal aortic aneurysm repair (AAA), coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), pediatric heart surgery, and carotid endarterectomy.
Patient satisfaction is based on a patient’s experience during their stay at the hospital. For example, consumers can view the overall rating for a particular hospital. The bar graphs are consumer friendly, illustrating the percentages per hospital along with the cut off percentage to be a hospital rating in the top ten percent.
There are three types of cost measures available to the public, which include inpatient DRG charges, outpatient ICD-9 surgical charges, and common outpatient diagnostic charges. Charges vary based on the level of illness of a patient. The total cost for a medical procedure do not include physician fees.
Reports are updated periodically. With the patient satisfaction measure, the last survey update was in 2006, and a new update should occur for 2008. The quality measures are updated quarterly from the Hospital Compare website. The last data update for the cost and pricing information was on the ‘October 2006-September 2007’ time frame.
