Media Release

For: Immediate Release
Date: December 10, 2002
Contact: Jean Marie Rocha, RN, MPH 401-222-4872

RI Health Department Releases Hospital Clinical Performance Report; Local Hospitals Compare Favorably with 8-State Pilot Group

December 10, 2002 --- Today, the RI Department of Health (HEALTH) released the first hospital-specific clinical performance report for Rhode Island. Patricia A. Nolan, MD, MPH, Director of HEALTH was joined by: Lieutenant Governor Charles J. Fogarty, author of the 1998 legislation that established the reporting program; Edward J. Quinlan, President of the Hospital Association of Rhode Island, Marcia Petrillo, CEO of Qualidigm and Executive Director of Rhode Island Quality Partners, (consultants to HEALTH for the program) and David Gifford, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer of Rhode Island Quality Partners.

"This report empowers patients and providers by providing them with the information they need to make decisions about what hospitals will best meet their needs. Equally as important, hospitals will find it useful as a tool to identify their strengths and opportunities to improve thereby improving health care statewide," said RI Lieutenant Governor, Charles J. Fogarty

The report provides information on how often hospitals in Rhode Island give recommended care to patients hospitalized for heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia. The ten hospitals included in the report routinely care for patients with these three conditions. The graphs use data collected from medical records of patients who were in these hospitals between May 2001 and December 2001."This report complements the hospital patient satisfaction information disseminated last year," said Patricia A. Nolan, MD, MPH, RI Director of Health. "Through this accomplishment, we fulfilled the legislative mandate to report both patient satisfaction and clinical performance measures, starting with hospitals. In fact, this is the first time that hospital-specific, clinical performance measures have been made available to the public in our state, or anywhere in the nation."The report released today is part of the state’s ongoing effort to promote quality of care in hospitals and other health care facilities, accountability in the health care delivery system, and provide helpful information to the public. In 1998, then-Senator Charles J. Fogarty introduced this broad sweeping legislation that applies to many types of licensed health care facilities including hospitals, nursing homes, and home health care agencies. The program involves two areas of measurement: patient satisfaction and clinical performance.The first report in the program, released in November 2001, focused on hospital patient satisfaction with the services provided in Rhode Island’s eleven general and two specialty-care hospitals. The topic of the second report was clinical care provided by the state’s nursing homes and was published in April 2002.This third report, focusing on hospital-specific, clinical performance in hospitals, is the result of over three years of effort by several workgroups with representation and cooperation from many interested organizations. In addition to HEALTH, these include the Hospital Association of Rhode Island (HARI), hospitals, Qualidigm (consultant to HEALTH), Rhode Island Quality Partners (the federally qualified quality improvement organization in RI), consumers, physicians, nurses, minorities, and academics/researchers."Measuring and improving clinical performance has long been a top priority for hospitals in Rhode Island," said Michael K. Lally, President and CEO of the Westerly Hospital and Chairman of the HARI Board of Trustees. "The unique benefit of this program is that it enables hospitals to gather data from medical records in exactly the same way, which allows for a greater sharing of "best practices" among all participants. We have been pleased with the exchange of ideas and the open cooperation among our hospitals."The performance of the RI hospitals is compared with hospitals in eight other states. This comparison was made possible because of a pilot project conducted by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations that included these facilities. The report was prepared by Qualidigm and Rhode Island Quality Partners, consultants to HEALTH, and was made possible, in part, with support from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.This report contains information on three common conditions for which adults in Rhode Island and the rest of the country are hospitalized. Heart attack is the leading cause of death for Americans. Heart failure affects five million Americans, with more than half a million new cases being diagnosed each year. Pneumonia causes more than 500,000 people to be hospitalized each year in the United States. Receiving quality care is very important for patients with these illnesses."This report presents data in a simple format that is easy to read and understand. We are using a new approach developed specifically for public reporting that combines into one rate, the key therapies, tests, and medications related to the treatment of a specific condition. This is the first time this "composite rate" approach is being used and we are very pleased that Rhode Islanders will benefit from it," said Marcia Petrillo, the Executive Director of Rhode Island Quality Partners and CEO of Qualidigm (consultants to HEALTH). This "composite" rate represents how many times a hospital gave the recommended treatment for patients. The key therapies, tests, and medications included in each rate were selected based on national guidelines developed through research, and the experience of physicians and other scientists."The two hospital related reports, patient satisfaction and clinical performance, are tools that Rhode Islanders can use when making health care decisions about hospitals for themselves and their families. They are also very important to the hospitals, providing information that will help them to continuously improve the services they offer and the outcomes of their patient," said Doctor David Gifford, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer for Rhode Island Quality Partners. "We are already working with all of the hospitals to improve their performance."The next edition of the patient satisfaction report will be released in the summer of 2003. The report will be based on surveys completed by patients who are hospitalized during the timeframe of December 2002 through March 2003.

Interested parties may request a printed copy of the clinical performance report by calling 401-222-2550. This report and the more comprehensive technical report – which contains detail on the individual measures for the key therapies, tests, and medications for each condition, -- are available on the RI Department of Health website: www.health.ri.gov. If you have questions about this report, call the RI Department of Health at 410-222-2550.