Data Collection and Usage

(See also: Methodology)

Timely and Effective Care

The information shown on this Web site comes from hospitals that voluntarily submit data to the Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) Clinical Warehouse, the national data repository for private healthcare data. The QIO Clinical Warehouse validates the information, provides feedback to the hospitals, and makes data available to the public through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Section 501(b) of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003 establishes a financial incentive for all hospitals to report quality of care information voluntarily as a public service. In order to receive this incentive payment, hospitals must submit data for certain specific quality measures relating to heart attacks, heart failure, and pneumonia.

Mortality Rates

Cardiac surgery mortality rates are derived from the annual reports published by the New York State Department of Health Cardiac Services Program. These reports contain risk-adjusted mortality rates for isolated coronary artery bypass graft surgeries, valve surgeries, percutaneous coronary interventions, and pediatric congenital surgeries in New York State. Additional mortality rates are calculated by IPRO using SPARCS data collected by New York State.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction measures are based on surveys of patients that solicit their opinions on aspects of their health care experience, such as how well doctors and nurses communicated, whether their pain was well controlled, and how quiet and clean the hospital was.

Emergency Department Timeliness

Hospitals report to the New York State Department of Health indicators of how long it takes on average for their emergency departments to respond to various circumstances, including time from arrival to departure for discharged and admitted patients, time to pain medication for large bone fractures, etc.

Hospital-Acquired Infections

A hospital acquired infection (HAI) is an infection that occurs in a patient as a result of being in a hospital after having medical or surgical treatments.

In July of 2005, Public Health Law 2819 was enacted mandating that New York hospitals report selected HAIs to the New York State Department of Health. The list of required indicators is periodically reviewed by the New York State Department of Health in consultation with a Technical Advisory Workgroup (TAW) and after public comment.

Readmission Rates

Readmission rates measures show the percentage of patients who were readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge after being admitted for heart attack, heart failure, or pneumonia.

Procedures Data

The procedures section shows the number of times a certain procedure was performed. To display the volume of procedures performed by each hospital, we sorted the New York State Department of Health Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS) database by National Center for Health Statistics (ICD-9) codes and, using the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Clinical Classifications Software, created a three-level data set of procedures. Selected procedures have been included. Procedure volume is available on a rolling year, showing all data for the most recently available four calendar quarters.

Pediatric Procedures

The Pediatric Procedure volume section shows the same reporting period, collection method, and set of procedures as the main Procedures section, but restricts the number of procedures to those performed on children aged 14 or under.

Maternity Information

The maternity section shows New York State Department of Health statistics on procedures and practices relating to pregnancy, birth, and newborns, ranging from what techniques of monitoring fetal development were used to details of delivery, and care and feeding of the newborn until discharge from the hospital. For each procedure or practice, an absolute number is shown as well as the percentage of births that number represents.

For more information please see the NYSDOH Maternity Information Brochure: English Version | Spanish Version.

Facility Data

Facility data, including number of beds and services available, come from the operating certificate for each hospital. Each hospital is invited to review information for accuracy and timeliness, and may also submit details such as Web site address, telephone number and other pertinent information.