© Copyright 2007 Health Grades, Inc. All rights reserved.
May not be reprinted or reproduced without permission from Health Grades, Inc.
Distinguished Hospital Award Patient Safety
TM
Methodology 2007
(20032005 MedPAR Data)
Introduction
To help consumers evaluate and compare hospital patient safety performance, HealthGrades analyzes patient
outcome data for virtually every hospital in the country. HealthGrades uses MedPAR file data from the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) which contains the inpatient records for Medicare patients. The steps listed
below are those taken to determine the recipients of the 2007 Distinguished Hospital Award for Patient SafetyTM by
creating an overall patient safety score for each hospital.
This methodology includes the following patient safety indicators:
·
Death in low mortality Diagnostic Related Groupings (DRGs)
·
Decubitus ulcer
·
Failure to rescue
·
Foreign body left in during procedure
·
Iatrogenic pneumothorax
·
Selected infections due to medical care
·
Post-operative hip fracture
·
Post-operative hemorrhage or hematoma
·
Post-operative physiologic and metabolic derangements
·
Post-operative respiratory failure
·
Post-operative pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis
·
Post-operative sepsis
·
Post-operative abdominal wound dehiscence
Data Acquisition
HealthGrades uses the MedPAR data file from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for several
reasons.
·
First, it includes virtually every hospital in the country, with the exception of military and Veterans
Administration hospitals.
·
Second, hospitals are required by law to submit complete and accurate information with substantial
penalties for those that report inaccurate or incomplete data.
·
Third, the Medicare population represents a majority of the adult inpatient admissions.
