The AHA yesterday urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to strategically build its star rating system for overall hospital-level quality rather than trying to retrofit existing Hospital Compare measures when they were not chosen with this goal in mind. AHA supports “the concept of providing an easier way for patients and community members to understand what the published measures are telling them about the quality of care being provided in America's hospitals,” wrote Ashley Thompson, AHA’s acting senior executive for policy. “We also support the majority of CMS's principles for creating a star rating system and are glad to assist in thinking through how to overcome many of the impediments to successfully creating such a system. However, we are concerned that CMS is trying to retrofit the existing measures into telling patients and consumers something meaningful when those measures were not chosen with this goal in mind, and many are not constructed in such a way that they can accurately depict the kind of distinctions in care CMS wants to depict.”

Related News Articles

Headline
The AHA Quest for Quality Prize honors hospitals and health systems committed to leadership and innovation in improving quality and advancing health. Learn how…
Headline
A JAMA study published Aug. 20 found that nearly 63% of all U.S. drug production facilities from 2019 through 2024 were in counties where a weather disaster…
Blog
Read about the 2025 Quest for Quality Prize winner and finalist — and apply for the 2026 awardEach day, health care professionals across the U.S. leverage…
Headline
A study published by JAMA Aug. 13 found that a two-dose antibiotic treatment could be just as effective as traditional long-term IV therapy for treating…
Headline
COVID-19 infections are growing or likely growing in 45 states and not changing in five states, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease…
Perspective
Public
Hospitals and health systems across the country vary in size, as well as the types of services and specialties they offer. They also offer many different…