Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1173622
51 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT Quality rating systems get low marks from researchers By Mackenzie Bean H ospital quality ratings systems can misclassify hospital performance and provide conflicting information for healthcare consumers, eight physician leaders and researchers wrote in a commen- tary published in NEJM Catalyst. e article's authors assessed the strengths and weaknesses of four major ratings sys- tems on six criteria: potential for misclassifi- cation of hospital performance; importance/ impact; scientific acceptability; iterative improvement; transparency; and usability. ey also met in person with representatives from each rating system to learn more about their methodologies and challenges. Authors then assigned an average overall letter grade for each ranking system: • U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals — B • CMS' Overall Star Ratings — C • e Leapfrog Group's Safety Grade and Top Hospitals — C- • Healthgrades' Top Hospitals — D+ e authors identified similar issues across the four rating systems, including limited data and measures, lack of robust data audits and composite measure development. Leapfrog CEO Leah Binder responded to the article in an Aug. 14 statement, chal- lenging the authors' assertion that Leapfrog only audits a handful of hospitals submitting surveys to the ratings group. "Rudimentary fact checking would have uncovered serious errors in the description of Leapfrog's ratings programs in the piece," Ms. Binder wrote. Mallorie Hatch, PhD, director of data science at Healthgrades, said the article provided a "highly inaccurate portrayal" of its hospital rankings. Dr. Hatch said authors misrepresented their methodolo- gy for its overall hospital award and "did notinclude an analysis of our other service line ratings and awards, which would have addressed many of the criticisms in the article," according to a written statement shared with Becker's. A CMS spokesperson told Becker's the agency is confident its star ratings "drive systematic improvements in care and safety." CMS released several methodology changes last spring based on feedback from health- care stakeholders and said it "looks forward to sharing improvements to the Star Ratings in the future." U.S. News & World Report, which made several methodology changes to its Best Hospital specialty rankings this year, offered a more positive response to the article. "We're gratified that the study recognized how responsive we have been to advances in measurement science and feedback from pa- tients, doctors and other stakeholders," Ben Harder, managing editor and chief of health analysis at U.S. News & World Report, said a written statement to Becker's. n UTHealth, Cerner launch data science competition to tackle sepsis By Jackie Drees C erner teamed up with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Biomedical Informatics on a com- petition to develop ways to use de-identified data to improve patient safety and care. This year's DII National Data Science Challenge focused on predic- tive accuracy for sepsis onset and mortality. Thirty teams, including those from Durham, N.C.-based Duke University, Emory University in Atlanta and UT Austin, participated in the competition. Participants used Cerner Health Facts, a database of de-identified EHR data for research and reporting, and Amazon Web Services cloud support to develop technological solutions for sepsis detec- tion. The teams also leveraged artificial intelligence and machine learning in conjunction with data from EHRs, revenue claims and social determinants of health for their creations. Test solutions were due Sept. 12. n CMS to update star ratings methodology in 2021 By Mackenzie Bean C MS will update its methodology for the Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings in 2021, the agency announced Aug. 19. CMS aims to share proposed methodology changes with the public next year and finalize them prior to its 2021 star ratings update. Proposed changes will be largely based on public feedback. The agency posted a summary of more than 800 comments it received during a public comment period on the hospital star ratings that ended in March 2019. CMS will still update the star ratings in early 2020 using its current methodology. The last update occurred in February 2019. n Researchers identified similar issues across the four rating systems, including limited data and measures, lack of robust data audits and composite measure development.