Quality matters. Better health for everyone should be America’s goal. Where you live and receive your healthcare services makes a difference in your health.
Fortunately, objective understandable quality metrics are now easily available at www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html. This easy-to-use website created by the federal government to help potential patients facilitate comparisons among hospitals is based on a variety of the more than 100 measures CMS publicly reports, divided into 7 measure groups or categories: Mortality, Safety of Care, Re-admission, Patient Experience, Effectiveness of Care, Timeliness of Care, and Efficient Use of Medical Imaging. Adding rationality to decision-making in determining where to go for care has the added benefit of improving performance for all hospitals because every healthcare system will have the extra motivation to improve its “grades.”
Better performance also translates system-wide to fewer complications, decreased waste, and lower costs. All these attributes contribute to a healthier America and the ability to transfer resources previously regarded as “waste” in healthcare to other worthwhile endeavors such as education, infrastructure, safety, and environmental protection.
Healthcare is the largest industry by far in America, consuming 18.3% of the GDP at $4.5 trillion dollars and growing. If the U.S. healthcare industry were considered a country, it would be the fifth largest in the world behind the U.S., China, Japan, and Germany. U.S. healthcare is larger than the United Kingdom. U.S. healthcare perennially ranks last in healthcare of the eleven most developed nations.
Healthcare systems living off a past reputation and perceived greatness, embellished and polished by extensive marketing, are no longer rational, effective, or fair to a naïve, stressed sick person. The most venerable institutions are now the most vulnerable.
Clear metrics such as heart failure, heart attack, pneumonia, and post-operative mortality rates objectively differentiate potential outcomes based on where you go for care. All this data is adjusted for age and severity of illness and, although the system is not perfect, it is the best we currently have, with all institutions having the same grading system.
Additionally, and arguably, even more important than being a repair shop, alert healthcare systems should be focused outside the four walls of their institutions. Sadly, our nation’s life expectancy has decreased in the last few years. This decline hasn’t happened since 1963.
Life has changed. Where you get care matters. Do your homework and add to your life expectancy. America can have better care for everyone now using accessible digital transparency.
