Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/903742
32 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT Healthgrades: 25 Cities Leading the Way in Healthcare By Brian Zimmerman H ealthgrades on Oct. 17 released its inaugural National Health Index, which provides consumers with an analysis of 25 cities leading the way in health and healthcare. To create the index, Healthgrades assessed 43 metropolitan areas for access to care, risky be- haviors, hospital quality and population health. Researchers scored each city based on 2018 quality ratings, responses to the CDC's 2015 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey and the number of active primary care providers per 100,000 population compiled by the American Medical Association for 2015. Here are the 25 cities getting healthcare right, beginning with the highest composite score. 1. Minneapolis-St. Paul 2. Denver 3. Sacramento, Calif. 4. Cincinnati 5. Portland, Ore. 6. Baltimore 7. Milwaukee 8. Dayton, Ohio 9. Charleston, W.V. 10. Boston 11. Akron, Ohio 12. Albuquerque, N.M. 13. Washington, D.C. 14. Seattle 15. Richmond, Va. 16. Cleveland 17. Charleston, S.C. 18. Los Angeles 19. Grand Rapids, Mich. 20. Toledo, Ohio 21. Phoenix 22. Philadelphia 23. Salt Lake City 24. Chicago 25. Columbus, Ohio n CMS Postpones October Hospital Star Ratings Update: 5 Things to Know By Brian Zimmerman C MS delayed its October update of Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings on its Hospital Compare website, according to AHA News Now. Here are five things to know. 1. The star rating system combines multiple quality measures into a single one-to-five star rating. While consumer groups like AARP lauded the release of the star ratings in July 2016, the American Hospital Asso- ciation, other hospital groups and some scholars have since expressed serious concern regarding the methodology behind the ratings. One major concern is that the mea- sure does not account for the social determinants of health. 2. CMS scheduled the October up- date after deciding not to update the ratings in July. The agency cancelled that update due to issues with three quality measures: central line-associ- ated bloodstream infections, Clostrid- ium difficile infections and PSI-90. 3. Ashley Thompson, the senior vice president of public policy analysis and development with AHA, urged CMS to remove the star ratings from its Hospital Compare website in a Sept. 25 letter addressed to Kate Goodrich, MD, the CMO of CMS. "At a minimum, the AHA strongly urges CMS to remove the star ratings from Hospital Compare and not republish them until it corrects the errors and outside experts agree that the updated methodology is executed correctly," Ms. Thompson wrote. "Even if CMS can improve the implementation of the current methodology, we continue to have significant concerns about the conceptual underpinnings of star ratings. The measures included in the ratings were never intended to create a single, representative score of hospital quality." 4. The overall quality star ratings from December 2016 remain posted on CMS' Hospital Compare website. Of the 4,598 hospitals rated on the website, just 83 — less than 2 percent — carry five-star ratings. 5. CMS has not said when updated overall star ratings will be released. n Study: 25% of LA County Hospital Patients Readmitted Within 30 days By Brian Zimmerman L os Angeles County has the highest 30-day readmission rate for any California county with more than one hospital, according to an analysis conducted by Dexur.com. For the analysis, researchers as- sessed data on 30-day readmissions that occurred between October 2015 and September 2016 at 100 hospitals in LA County. Researchers determined the county had an aver- age 30-day readmission rate of 24.5 percent, compared to 20.9 percent for the state and a 21.8 percent for the nation. "We obviously strive to do better," said Jennifer Bayer, vice president of external communications for the Hospital Association of Southern California, according to the Los An- geles Business Journal. "But it is not entirely surprising considering the lack of access to primary care and appropriate follow-up care for the underserved." n