Maryland Health Care Commission upgrades Quality Reports website
Revamped portal houses consumer guides, report on health benefits plans
Baltimore, MD (August 11, 2015) – This week, the Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC) is introducing the improved Maryland Health Care Quality Reports website (www.marylandqmdc.org). This announcement builds on the effort launched in December 2014 to design a comprehensive quality site that focuses the Maryland health care system on delivering better care, spending health care dollars more wisely, and helping people stay healthy.
The updated website creates a comprehensive, consumer friendly resource tool by bringing together the Commission's three consumer guides – on hospitals, long term care and ambulatory surgery centers – as well as the quality report on health benefits plans. These revisions released to the Maryland Health Care Quality Reports website add new provider performance information and improve site navigation and data display. The enhancements are highlighted below:
o New healthcare-associated infections results have been added. For the first time, information is included for surgical site infection (SSI) data for colon and abdominal hysterectomy. SSI data for hip, knee, and Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery procedures have been updated with the most current data available for CY2014. The latest results show that Maryland continues to perform better than the national benchmark for all SSIs combined.
o The results of the 2014-15 hospital worker flu vaccination survey are also included on the site. Maryland hospital performance on this metric remains outstanding. This is the fourth consecutive year that Maryland hospitals have reported improvements.
o The Commission’s price transparency information on hospitals has been expanded to include hospital charge information for all Diagnosis-Related Groups. Maryland residents can review and compare the charge differences among Maryland hospitals
o Consumer ratings on hospital care were updated through the second quarter of 2014 using the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. Maryland hospitals continue to perform below the national average; however, survey results for both Maryland and the nation overall have remained consistent between 2013 and 2014.
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Long-term care guide -- For performance information on nursing homes, a Quick Compare feature has been added to enable easy comparisons among nursing homes on overall quality ratings, health inspection results, and staffing.
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Physician guide – A new search feature has been added to find a physician by name, ZIP code, specialty or practice, as well as the background information and hospital affiliations of the physician.
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Common technological backing – The Maryland Health Care Commission developed Health Care Quality Reports using the federal government’s MONAHRQ software, a sophisticated data presentation system designed to be tailored to fit individual states’ needs. Use of MONAHRQ will enable Maryland to capitalize on ongoing federal investments in MONAHRQ and in expanded data sources without having to redesign the reporting infrastructure.
For more information, contact Theressa Lee, Director of the Center for Quality Measurement and Reporting at the MHCC, at 410-764-3328.
About the Maryland Health Care Commission
The Maryland Health Care Commission is a 15-member, independent regulatory agency whose mission is to plan for health system needs, promote informed decision-making, increase accountability, and improve access in a rapidly changing health care environment by providing timely and accurate information on availability, cost, and quality of services to policy makers, purchasers, providers and the public. The 15 Commissioners are appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Maryland Senate. The Commission's vision for Maryland is to ensure that informed consumers hold the health care system accountable and have access to affordable and appropriate health care services through programs that serve as models for the nation.
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The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is the state government agency that protects Maryland’s public health and also works to help Marylanders make better health decisions for better health outcomes. Stay connected: www.twitter.com/MarylandDHMH and www.facebook.com/MarylandDHMH.