Published by: Bruce Siegel on 10/7/2011 9:40:33 AM
As USA Today reports, a recent study found that “The nation's worst hospitals treat twice the proportion of elderly black patients and poor patients…” The article notes that these hospitals will be at increased risk of failure under the Affordable Care Act, which will withhold money from poorly performing hospitals, thus putting vulnerable Americans at further risk.
While NAPH agrees that hospitals across the nation will always have room to improve, NAPH members are not likely to be among those considered the low-quality, high-cost organizations described in the report. While the study does not name the hospitals rated as “worst,” it concentrates mainly on small public and investor-owned hospitals in the South.
NAPH represents the nation’s largest metropolitan hospitals and health systems that fulfill a safety net mission of providing high volumes of care to low-income individuals. And, according to recent data, NAPH members perform at or above the national average on 20 of 24 quality measures and are improving at a faster rate than all hospitals nationally. NAPH members have mortality rates for heart failure and heart attack patients that are at the national average, despite serving patient populations that face high medical, social and economic challenges.
While health care delivery is changing, and hospitals face many new obstacles, NAPH members are using innovative practices and techniques to improve the quality of care they deliver, and many of these hospitals can serve as the models for achieving new standards of sustainable, quality-driven health care for all Americans.