PHA Quality Index

What is an index?
An index is a metric that combines a variety of elements into one easy to understand value. An index is a comprehensive way to assess (single point value), monitor variation, and manage performance (trend) in many different measures. Useful indices convey information about the underlying measures without revealing anything about individual components. A good index contains a stable set of components that are representative of what they are measuring, reliable, scientifically valid, and sensitive enough to reflect changes in what is being measured.

Why do we want an index?
The Partnership for Health and Accountability and the Best Practices Sub-Committee wanted a method of hospital comparison that looks at the main elements of patient care in facilities: process, outcomes, and medication safety. Since GHA maintains the only statewide database of hospital process, discharge, and patient safety data, a quality index could be created without additional work or duplication of efforts. The index could then be used as a tool for hospitals and consumers; it is an easy way to report performance to others. An index translates data into information that hospitals can use to improve quality and customer satisfaction, as well as to help consumers make better decisions. An example from industry is the J.D. Power and Associates Award.

What is included in the Hospital Relative Quality Index?
In order to show multiple aspects of patient care, a team of Georgia clinicians and quality professionals developed a list of the following measures:

• Process – how care is delivered in the hospital
  This topic includes the Joint Commission Core Measures for heart attack (AMI), congestive heart failure (CHF), and pneumonia (PN).
• Outcomes – what are the results of the care in the hospital
  This topic includes measures such as Inpatient Mortality, Length of Stay, Readmit in 30 days, Return to Operating Room, and Readmits for Post-Op Infection in 30 days.
• Patient Safety – keeping patients safe from harm while in the hospital
  This topic includes measures from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a research arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as well as medication dose information from the hospital pharmacy department.

For more information on the Best Practices Sub-Committee please email us at: pha@gha.org