Section 120.26. Hospital quality indicators report.

 

(1)   Data source. The hospital quality indicators report shall be based on hospital inpatient data collected by the department under s. DHS 120.12 (5) . The inpatient discharge data are reformatted by the department to be consistent with nationally recognized quality indicators.

(2)   Contents. The hospital quality indicators report shall present variations in the delivery of inpatient care at individual hospitals without identifying the individual hospitals. The purpose of the report is to promote improvements in the overall quality of hospital care by providing an analysis of the variations in care delivery across the state. Where appropriate, national comparisons serve as improvement benchmarks. Each report shall include all the following information:

(a) A description of the report's data and the limitations in interpreting the data.

(b) A description of nationally recognized quality indicators.

(c) A discussion of how to interpret the analysis of the variations in care delivery across the state.

(d) A graphical presentation of the performance of hospitals relative to the quality indicators selected for presentation in the report.

(e) A discussion of how a hospital may obtain from the department hospital-specific information resulting from application of the nationally recognized quality indicators.

(3)   Report dissemination.

(a) The department shall distribute a paper copy of the report at no charge to the governor, the legislature and a board-approved list of individuals and agencies. The department shall make the paper version of the report available for purchase by others. The department shall make available from the department's website an electronic version of the report at no charge.

(b) The department may not release the identity of the individual hospitals in the report. Individual hospitals may request information from the department that allows the hospital to assess the hospital's standing relative to a group of hospitals with comparable patient volumes or state or national benchmarks.

(4)   Suggested uses of report. Some suggestions for using the report are as follows:

(a) By legislators and policymakers to examine the variation in indicators of hospital quality for various diagnoses and procedures and, in turn, whether the variation suggests the need for improvements in the quality of the health care delivery system.

(b) In conjunction with other available information, by commercial and public health care purchasers to determine the extent of variation in indicators of hospital quality. Contracts between health care purchasers and health plans and providers may address concerns arising from the reported indicators of quality.

(c) As a resource document for persons wishing to conduct research or seek information on hospital quality indicators.

(d) As a resource for consumers interested in learning about the expected outcomes of hospital care associated with a specific diagnostic category or a procedure.

(e) As a resource for individual hospitals that want to assess the need for quality improvement projects.

History: Cr. Register, December, 2000, No. 540 , eff. 1-1-01.

Note

An example of nationally recognized quality indicators are the health care utilization project (HCUP) quality indicators. Microsoft Windows NT 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1