The release of this report provides the opportunity to gauge progress in health care quality improvement which The Joint Commission has been tracking over the past 12 years. The collective performance of these accredited hospitals on individual accountability measures has steadily improved over the past few years. The data released today show improved care for pneumonia, children’s asthma, surgical care, heart failure and other common conditions. This demonstrates the nationwide implementation of evidence-based quality improvement processes is working.

“Today we celebrate the successes that represent improvements in the quality of patient care at Joint Commission accredited hospitals across this country. America’s hospitals continue to make dramatic strides toward becoming more reliable and we continue to encourage them to do so. Each year, the quality standards’ bar has been raised and hospitals have responded to the challenge,” says Mark R. Chassin, M.D., FACP, M.P.P., M.P.H., president and CEO, The Joint Commission. “We applaud their commitment to deliver the right treatment, in the right way, at the right time for patients. We also look forward to continuing to work together to accelerate further health care improvement.”

In addition, 1,224 of the hospitals that reported data in 2013 have earned recognition by The Joint Commission’s Top Performer on Key Quality Measures® program, this represents an 11 percent increase from last year. That means, 36.9 percent of all Joint Commission-accredited hospitals reporting accountability measure performance data for 2013 are “Top Performer” hospitals, and 718 hospitals missed achieving Top Performer recognition by only a slight margin.

The Top Performer program identifies hospitals with extraordinary performance on very important measures of quality; however, it is not a rating of all aspects of quality of care provided in hospitals. The designation is based on performance related to accountability measures for heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, perinatal care, surgical care, children’s asthma care, inpatient psychiatric services, venous thromboembolism (VTE) care, stroke care, and immunization.

To become a 2013 Top Performer on Key Quality Measures hospitals must have:

• Achieved a cumulative performance of 95 percent or above across all reported accountability measures;
• Achieved a performance of 95 percent or above on each and every reported accountability measure where there were at least 30 denominator cases; and
• Had at least one core measure set that had a composite rate of 95 percent or above, and within that measure set, all applicable individual accountability measures had a performance rate of 95 percent or above.

In order to further improve performance, the required number of selected core measure sets for which a hospital must submit data to The Joint Commission increased from four to six, effective January 1, 2014. By raising the bar, The Joint Commission is helping its accredited hospitals monitor and improve performance in more clinical conditions and patient populations. For quality, safety and patient satisfaction results for specific hospitals, please visit www.qualitycheck.org. 

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Founded in 1951, The Joint Commission seeks to continuously improve health care for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating health care organizations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value. The Joint Commission accredits and certifies more than 20,500 health care organizations and programs in the United States, including hospitals and health care organizations that provide ambulatory and office-based surgery, behavioral health, home care, laboratory and nursing home services. An independent, not-for-profit organization, The Joint Commission is the nation’s oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in health care. The Joint Commission has two nonprofit affiliate organizations: The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare aims to solve health care’s most critical safety and quality problems and Joint Commission Resources (JCR) provides consulting services, educational services and publications. Joint Commission International, a division of JCR, accredits and certifies international health care organizations. Learn more about The Joint Commission at www.jointcommission.org.