Quality of care provided to individual patients in US hospitals: results from an analysis of national Hospital Quality Alliance data

Abstract

Background: There is little national data on the characteristics of patients who receive high quality inpatient care defined as either the receipt of all applicable processes (all-or-none performance) or the proportion of applicable processes received during their hospitalization.

Objectives: To assess the quality of care provided to patients hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure or pneumonia, to describe variations in quality by patient and hospital characteristics, and the sensitivity of all-or-none performance to the number and type of processes.

Design and subjects: Retrospective analysis of previously unavailable Hospital Quality Alliance patient-level data on 2.3 million individuals receiving care in non-federal US hospitals in 2005.

Measures: The proportion of patients who received all applicable care processes, and the mean proportion of applicable processes received by hospitalized patients.