Americans' health care should be safe, coordinated, evidence-based, responsive to patient preferences, and continuously improving. The Affordable Care Act established the National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Health Care (the National Quality Strategy) to guide the efforts to increase access to high quality, affordable health care. The National Quality Strategy focuses on eliminating patient harms, reducing waste, and applying innovation in how care is delivered with the goal of ensuring that each patient receives the right care, at the right time, in the right setting, every time. The National Quality Strategy promotes quality health care in which the needs of patients, families, and communities guide the actions of all those who deliver and pay for care and it will foster a delivery system that works better for clinicians and provider organizations—reducing their administrative burdens and helping them collaborate to improve care. This dashboard includes measures that capture multiple dimensions of quality in various domains of the health care delivery system, including outpatient care, inpatient care, and nursing facilities. The national summary data for the measures that comprise this dashboard are presented below.
This measure describes the quality of a person’s interaction with his or her health care provider. Effective communication is a critical aspect of safe, quality patient care.
Depression affects 1 in 10 U.S. adults. People with depression have higher rates of chronic conditions such as obesity and diabetes, increased work absenteeism, short-term disability, and decreased productivity. Early screening is important because symptoms usually improve with treatment and therapy.
Adequate pain management is an important indicator of quality of care and quality of life. Nursing home staff should check patients regularly to see if they are experiencing pain. If pain is not treated, a resident may not be able to perform daily routines, may become depressed, or may have an overall poor quality of life. The reported percentage may include some residents who are getting or who have been prescribed treatment for their pain, but who refuse pain medicines or choose to take less.
This measure reports the percentage of nursing home residents who experienced one or more falls within the past 30 days.
This is a composite measure based on individual measures in the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP). The composite measure is the proportion of surgical patients who receive all appropriate processes of care, as defined by the project. These processes include, for example, timeliness of antibiotics and the prevention of clots.
Healthcare-associated infections are infections that patients acquire during the course of receiving treatment for other conditions within a healthcare setting.
Healthcare-associated infections are infections that patients acquire during the course of receiving treatment for other conditions within a healthcare setting.
Inadequate access to outpatient primary and specialty care can lead to unnecessary hospitalizations. This measure describes the proportion of hospitalizations that are due to ambulatory care sensitive conditions; conditions that can be well managed in ambulatory settings. These conditions include hypertension, angina, heart failure, diabetes, and asthma.
Inadequate access to outpatient primary and specialty care can lead to unnecessary hospitalizations. This measure describes the proportion of hospitalizations among children that are due to ambulatory care sensitive conditions; conditions that can be well managed in ambulatory settings. These conditions include asthma, diabetes, gastroenteritis, and urinary tract infections.
Outpatient treatment for those with SA helps recovery and avoids the crises leading to hospitalization. This measure illustrates the extent to which individuals aged 13-64 and covered under employer health insurance plans become engaged in outpatient substance abuse care within 30 days of a SA related inpatient stay.
Hospital readmissions are costly, and some can be prevented through care coordination and appropriate follow-up care outside the hospital.
Hospital readmissions are costly, and some can be prevented through care coordination and appropriate follow-up care outside the hospital.