National Quality Measures Show Fewer Deaths:
Decline In Mortality Rates
In Wisconsin Hospitals
MADISON (January 4, 2006) - Mortality rates in Wisconsin hospitals were consistently lower in 2004 than in 2001 for 11 key conditions and procedures, according to information released by the WHA Information Center, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Hospital Association (WHA).
“Wisconsin hospitals place a high priority on quality improvement,” according to Chuck Shabino, MD, WHA medical affairs advisor. “The results from 2004 are a clear indication of that commitment.”
The 2004 statistics are included in WHA Information Center’s Wisconsin Inpatient Hospital Quality Indicators Report, which details hospital performance on a range of quality measures developed by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The mortality rates measure the number of deaths per 100 discharges. For each of the five procedures and six conditions measured, the mortality rate has declined since 2001. A list of the mortality rates is attached.
The most significant declines in mortality rates were seen for gastrointestinal hemorrhage (29 percent) and carotid endarterectomy (58 percent), which fell to 2.2 and 0.5, respectively. Gastrointestinal hemorrhage is a condition involving blood loss within the digestive system. Carotid endarterectomy is a surgical procedure to remove fatty plaques from the carotid (neck) artery to reduce the patient’s risk of stroke.
“There are many ways to measure quality, but when the measure is mortality, the quality of care may literally mean the difference between life and death,” said Dana Richardson, WHA vice president, quality initiatives. Richardson said that many of the mortality measures in the Quality Indicators Report align with the process measures tracked by WHA’s CheckPoint Web site (www.wicheckpoint.org), which provides hospital-specific quality and safety statistics.
For example, CheckPoint reports hospitals’ adherence to treatment protocols for specific conditions, including pneumonia, a life-threatening lung infection common among the elderly. Hospitals in Wisconsin have exceeded the national average on CheckPoint’s pneumonia process measures.
Meanwhile, the mortality rate for pneumonia in Wisconsin hospitals declined about 20 percent from 2001 to 2004, from 8.1 to 6.5 deaths per 100 discharges. “It is gratifying to see what we’ve always believed -- that good processes produce good results,” said Richardson.
The full Quality Indicators Report is available on-line at the WHA Information Center Web site: www.whainfocenter.com/data_resources/2004_QI/2004_QI_Report_2004.pdf
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