Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1398595
47 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT How CMS ranked US News' 20 Honor Roll hospitals By Erica Carbajal C MS updated its Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings April 28, and 11 of U.S. News & World Report's 2020-21 20 Honor Roll hospitals received a five-star rating. Here are U.S. News' 20 Honor Roll hospitals ranked in order (including ties), along with their overall CMS star rating: 1. Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.): 5 stars 2. Cleveland Clinic: 5 stars 3. Johns Hopkins (Baltimore): 4 stars 4. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell (New York City): 4 stars 4. UCLA Medical Center: 4 stars 6. Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston): 5 stars 7. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles): 5 stars 8. UCSF Medical Center (San Francisco): 4 stars 9. NYU Langone Hospitals (New York City): 5 stars 10. Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago): 5 stars 11. University of Michigan Hospitals-Michigan Medicine (Ann Arbor): 5 stars 12. Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston): 4 stars 13. Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital (Palo Alto, Calif.): 5 stars 14. Mount Sinai Hospital (New York City): 4 stars 15. Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian (Philadelphia): 4 stars 16. Mayo Clinic-Phoenix: 5 stars 17. Rush University Medical Center (Chicago): 5 stars 18. Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis): 3 stars 18. Keck Hospital of USC (Los Angeles): 4 stars 20. Houston Methodist Hospital: 5 stars n Pediatric sepsis cases jumped during pandemic, study finds By Mackenzie Bean P ostoperative sepsis rates increased among children who were hospitalized early in the pandemic, a study published June 1 in Hospital Pediatrics found. For the study, researchers analyzed quality data on 88,140 patients dis- charged from U.S. children's hospitals between March 15 and May 31, 2020. They also looked at data on 399,113 patients discharged between the same period from 2017-19. Data came from the Children's Hospital Association's Pediatric Health Information System. Unadjusted pediatric quality indicator rates — a set of measures that fo- cus on preventable complications — were higher during the pandem- ic than before. After adjusting for factors such as diagnosis and clinical severity, re- searchers found the rate of postoperative sepsis among pediatric pa- tients was 28 percent higher during the pandemic compared to before. Based on these findings, study authors said more efforts are needed to improve the safety of postoperative care for hospitalized children. n NYC Health + Hospitals stops using 2 race-based clinical assessments By Mackenzie Bean N YC Health + Hospitals will no longer perform two common diagnostic tests that use race-based calculations, the New York City-based health system said May 17. The health system will stop adjusting for race in a formula commonly used to measure kidney function. Instead, NYC Health + Hospitals will calculate the measure — known as glomerular filtration rate — based sole- ly on a patient's creatine levels, age and sex. The health system will also stop using a clinical risk calculation for vagi- nal birth after Cesarean-section. The calculation was created in 2007 and includes race as a risk factor alongside age, body mass index and clinical history of delivery. The changes are part of the system's "medical eracism" initiative, which aims to eliminate race-based assessments used for medical decisions that are based on biased assumptions and could hinder care quality for patients of color. "Race is not a biological determinant, but a social construct," NYC Health + Hospitals CMO Machelle Allen, MD, said in the news release. "These calculations were based on racialized assumptions about biology that date back to slavery and the belief that somehow the bodies of African descendants were different from others." Quality, safety and equity leaders at the health system are leading the initiative and will work to identify additional race-based assessments to recommend for elimination. n