Introduction from The Joint Commission President
This second annual report on quality and safety comes in response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback The Joint Commission received after compiling and publishing its maiden report in March 2007. The report´s website – http://www.jointcommissionreport.org – has received well over one million hits since March of this year, averaging about 8,000 per day and the report has been especially well received in the health care community where the growing commitment to quality and safety improvement is today quite evident.
In addition to offering national and statewide perspectives on hospital performance, the report encourages the health care professional community – as well as the media and consumers – to examine the performance of local hospitals and other providers at the Joint Commission´s Quality Check® website – www.qualitycheck.org. This comparison of local providers to national and state averages is still another way in which the Commission supports health care organization accountability and continual improvement.
Improving America´s Hospitals: The Joint Commission´s Annual Report on Quality and Safety 2007 presents reliable information on how America´s accredited hospitals performed against evidence-based quality measures relating to the care of heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical patients during the 2006 year. Previous years´ results are available as well; the results show continuing annual improvements in most cases. These improvements have saved multiple lives and resulted in better health and quality of life for thousands of patients.
Most of the measures of heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia care included in this report have now been tracked for five years, while the surgical care measures have now been tracked for two years. This report also includes performance results regarding compliance with the 2006 National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs), portrays 2003-2006 NPSG performance trends, identifies the top standards compliance issues in 2006, and presents information about sentinel events. Sentinel events are preventable adverse events that result in serious injury or death. The report also includes a section that describes how to compare local hospital performance to national and state performance benchmarks at the Joint Commission´s Quality Check website.
The Institute of Medicine has urged that quality-related performance be gathered and made public. The Joint Commission and others have responded by producing reports such as this report. Today, we continue to work with accredited health care organizations, stakeholder groups, and others to produce an increasingly rich array of performance data and information and to produce these products in meaningful time frames.
The quality and safety performance results in this report show both where improvements have been made and where future opportunities for improvement still lie. While consumers may obtain performance data or health care quality and safety ratings of health care providers from many sources, this report is based on reliable data that are scientifically sound. Much of the improvement reflected in this report can be attributed to the consistent application of focused, evidence-based measures which constitute the foundation of the Joint Commission´s performance measurement endeavors.
The Joint Commission is committed to identifying new and better ways to collect and portray credible clinical performance data. Our ultimate goal—as ever—is to create accountability among care providers and improve health care outcomes for patients.
Sincerely,
Dennis S. O´Leary, M.D.
President
The Joint Commission