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Northeast Ohio Hospitals See Positive Results Through HQN

The Hospital Quality Network (HQN), a nationwide project that falls under the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Aligning Forces for Quality initiative aimed at reducing re-hospitalizations for heart failure patients and maintaining the Heart Failure Measures of Ideal Care, will come to a close in May 2012.

Based on the initial nine months of data, The Center for Health Affairs and Better Health Greater Cleveland are proud to report positive trends among the 10 Northeast Ohio hospital participants. These findings are based on the first nine months of data beginning in October 2010 through June 2011. Data collection went through December 2011, with the final submission completed on March 31, 2012. The results based on the full 15-months will be available within the upcoming months.

Hospital-specific data for this initial nine-month period has been presented to each of the participating hospitals and the aggregate data report was presented to the HQN alliance.

Based on the data, we are proud to present the following results:

• Among The Center’s 10 participating member hospitals, the average 30-day readmission rate was better than the national and state averages for all three quarters. Four participating member hospitals saw a decrease in the 30-day all-cause readmission rates between fourth-quarter 2010 and second-quarter 2011.
• The Center’s 10 participating member hospitals achieved a quarterly average of 96 percent in their Heart Failure Measure of Ideal Care (HF-MIC), exceeding the overall Hospital Quality Network average of 94 percent. More than half of The Center’s participating member hospitals achieved and maintained 95 percent or greater compliance on their HF-MIC for three consecutive quarters.
• The average 30-day readmission rate for heart failure following heart failure hospitalization decreased in eight of The Center’s 10 participating hospitals between fourth-quarter 2010 and second-quarter 2011, which was better than the HQN’s overall average.

Over the past few years, The Center for Health Affairs has participated in Better Health Greater Cleveland through coordination of the Transitions of Care Collaborative, an initiative under the Better Health umbrella aimed at helping hospitals reduce readmissions.

The Transitions of Care Collaborative is exploring ways to keep the momentum going by continuing to collect this data locally to inform hospitals' readmission initiatives. The Committee’s plan is to work with the high-performing hospitals to gather and share innovations, strategies and challenges with other area hospitals to help reduce readmissions and help hospitals prepare for the readmissions-related payment reductions by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that will begin in federal fiscal year 2013.

If you have any questions regarding the data, please contact Lisa Anderson at 216.255.3660 or lisa.anderson@chanet.org or Linda Neiding at 216.255.3666 or linda.neiding@chanet.org.