# Presentation: 337903

## Spotlight Case November 2006

- Getting a Good Report Card: Unintended Consequences of the Public Reporting of Hospital Quality

## Source and Credits

- This presentation is based on the November 2006 AHRQ WebM&M Spotlight Case
- See the full article at _[http://](http://webmm.ahrq.gov/)__[webmm.ahrq.gov](http://webmm.ahrq.gov/)_
- CME credit is available through the Web site
- Commentary by: **Peter Lindenauer MD, MSc**; Baystate Health and Tufts University School of Medicine
- Editor, AHRQ WebM&M: Robert Wachter, MD
- Spotlight Editor: Tracy Minichiello, MD
- Managing Editor: Erin Hartman, MS

## Objectives

*	**At the conclusion of this educational activity, participants should be able to:*
- Understand the rationale for public reporting of hospital quality
- List the current measures set being used nationally
- Describe unintended consequence of public reporting and interventions to prevent these

## The Case

*A 55-year-old woman with end stage renal disease requiring hemodialysis and coronary artery disease (status post coronary artery bypass grafting and placement of a St. Jude prosthetic valve) was admitted to the medical service with palpitations and chest pain. She reported missing her scheduled hemodialysis session and her symptoms resolved with prompt inpatient hemodialysis. *

## The Case

*The work-up revealed that the patient’s anticoagulation with warfarin was subtherapeutic, and a heparin drip was initiated to bridge her until the INR was in the therapeutic range. *
*Mostly in response to increasing pressure from the hospital's administration to improve compliance with publicly reported quality measures, the attending physician recommended pneumococcal vaccination and it was administered. *

## Public Reporting of Hospital Quality

- Viewed with skepticism, but demand at all-time high
- Public reporting initiatives underway throughout the United States and Europe, and at the local, national, and international levels

## Goals of Public Reporting

- Improves transparency in health care and can empower patients to make better choices about where to seek treatment
- Increases hospital accountability for quality of care and provides a stimulus to improve for fear of losing market share to local competitors
- Performance over time can be tied to compensation through "pay-for-performance" contracts

*Marshall MN, et al. JAMA. 2000;283:1866-1874.  *

## Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA)

- A national public-private collaboration established to encourage hospitals to voluntarily collect and report hospital quality performance information
- Achieved participation rates > 98% because linked to annual payment update by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

*Hospital Quality Alliance Web site.*

## Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA)

- Began in 2003 with 10 quality measures spread across 3 clinical conditions: heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia
- By 2006, the program had expanded to include 21 measures including those focused on quality of surgical care

*Hospital Quality Alliance Web site.*

## HQA: Current Measure Set

**Heart Attack (Acute Myocardial Infarction or AMI)**
- •	Aspirin at arrival
- •	Aspirin at discharge
- •	ACE Inhibitor or ARB for left ventricular systolic dysfunction
- •	Beta Blocker at arrival
- •	Beta Blocker at discharge
- •	Thrombolytic agent within 30 minutes of hospital arrival
- •	Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) within 120 minutes of hospital arrival
- •	Smoking cessation advice/counseling

*US Dept. of Health and Human Services Hospital Compare Web site. *

## HQA: Current Measure Set (cont.)

**Heart Failure**_ _
- •	Assessment of left ventricular function
- •	ACE inhibitor or ARB for left ventricular systolic dysfunction
- •	Discharge instructions
- •	Smoking cessation advice/counseling

*US Dept. of Health and Human Services Hospital Compare Web site. *

## HQA: Current Measure Set (cont.)

**Pneumonia **
- •	Oxygenation assessment
- •	Initial antibiotic timing
- •	Pneumococcal vaccination
- •	Influenza vaccination
- •	Blood culture performed prior to first antibiotic received in hospital
- •	Smoking cessation advice/counseling
- •	Appropriate initial antibiotic selection

*US Dept. of Health and Human Services Hospital Compare Web site. *

## HQA: Current Measure Set (cont.)

**Surgical Infection Prevention **
- •	Prophylactic antibiotic received within 1 hour prior to surgical incision
- •	Prophylactic antibiotics discontinued within 24 hours after surgery end

*US Dept. of Health and Human Services Hospital Compare Web site. *

## Example Screenshot of HQA Data Available to Public on the Hospital Compare Web Site

*http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/ *

## Impact of Public Reporting

- Little known about actual impact on quality of care or patient outcomes
- No evidence that public reporting affects patients' decisions on where to receive care
- Case of New York state and Wisconsin

*Hibbard JH, et al. Health Aff (Millwood). 2005;24:1150-1160.*

## The Case (cont.)

*Later that day, the patient complained of pain over her right upper arm. The attending told her that this was common after immunization and that it would resolve. The next day, the patient reported that her pain was worse, and the team noted an 8 cm hematoma within the muscles of her upper arm. The hematoma resolved spontaneously. There was no permanent harm.*

## Concerns About Public Reporting

- Are the measures being reported valid?
- Field of quality measurement in health care is still in its infancy
- Only a small number of measures based on sound evidence
- Measures validated for one purpose sometimes used inappropriately

*See Notes for complete references. *

## Concerns About Public Reporting

- Comparing outcomes across institutions hampered by real and perceived challenges of carrying out risk adjustment and by limited statistical power when studying rare events
- Shift towards the use of process measures (what was done) instead of outcomes (what happened to the patient), but may fail to result in actual improvements in the outcomes of care

**Notes:**
Pitfalls of using process measures instead of process outcomes: if the association between the process measure and the desired outcome is weak, or if there is improvement in the documentation of the process but not in the actual process itself.  

## Unintended Consequences: Direct Harm

- Development of allergic reaction following medication administration in patient not previously known to have an allergy
- Administration of a beta blocker to a patient with heart block
- Provision of multiple influenza vaccinations to a patient during a single hospitalization
- Development of bleeding from venous thromboembolism prophylaxis that did not adequately outline contraindications to the use of heparins

## Unintended Consequences: Indirect Harm

- Important health care matters neglected when physicians or nurses shift their attention to those aspects of care for which they are being asked to report publicly
- Achieving optimal glycemic control during the hospitalization of a diabetic while failing to intervene to correct untreated hyperlipidemia

## Hospitals may reallocate valuable resources to excel in public measures while overlooking more pressing opportunities to improve care
Hospitals may decide to hire additional clinical personnel to improve performance from 98% to 100% on a measure, such as the use of aspirin in myocardial infarction, while the quality of care for patients with stroke or COPD is neglected

- Hospitals may decide to hire additional clinical personnel to improve performance from 98% to 100% on a measure, such as the use of aspirin in myocardial infarction, while the quality of care for patients with stroke or COPD is neglected

**Unintended Consequences: Indirect Harm**

## Hospitals may turn away high-risk patients who might tarnish their scores
When outcomes such as mortality or complications are being compared, hospital will have higher scores with lower-risk population

- When outcomes such as mortality or complications are being compared, hospital will have higher scores with lower-risk population

**Unintended Consequences: Indirect Harm**

## Patients and payers may misinterpret quality performance information and make poor choices about where to seek care or direct patients
Limited number of clinical areas for which public reporting has been implemented; performance in one area does not predict high performance in other clinical areas

- Limited number of clinical areas for which public reporting has been implemented; performance in one area does not predict high performance in other clinical areas

*Jha AK, Li Z, et al. N Engl J Med. 2005;353:265-274.*

**Unintended Consequences: Indirect Harm**

## Reducing the Burden of Unintended Consequences

- Acknowledge that unintended consequences are bound to occur following any effort to implement change
- Educate staff about the change
- Implement failure mode effects analysis (FMEA)
- Systematic, proactive, method for evaluating a process to identify where and how it might fail, and to assess the relative impact of different failures

## Reducing the Burden of Unintended Consequences

- Minimize reliance on human vigilance
- Implement checklists, protocols, and forcing functions
- Electronic order entry systems to prevent administration of medications to patients with specific contraindications
- Medication dispensing and administration system can be designed to require the nurse to document a heart rate before releasing a beta blocker for administration

## Monitoring 
Automated detection can be used to measure how often patients with heart failure receive treatment with antibiotics intended for treatment of pneumonia

- Automated detection can be used to measure how often patients with heart failure receive treatment with antibiotics intended for treatment of pneumonia

**Reducing the Burden of Unintended Consequences**

## Reducing the Burden of Unintended Consequences

- Reasonable expectations by payers
- Set and communicate realistic goals: a goal of 100% is not possible without resulting in unintended effects
- Institute a broad range of measures, rotating them frequently, without announcement to prevent hospitals from gaming the system
- Consider incorporating predictable unintended events into standard public reporting measure sets

## The Case: Revisited

*“**A 55-year-old woman with end stage renal disease requiring hemodialysis and coronary artery disease..”*
- Current immunization measures apply only to patients with pneumonia
- Patient may have benefited but there was no such reporting requirement
- The attending physician was not correct that failure to immunize would have affected the hospital’s performance

## The Case: Revisited

*“...**a heparin drip was initiated...pneumococcal vaccination was administered...the team noted an **8 cm hematoma within the muscles of her upper arm”*
- Anticoagulation is not considered a contraindication to the administration of immunization
- Best viewed as a non preventable case of direct harm that occurred while following clinical guidelines

## The Case: Revisited

*“...**a heparin drip was initiated...pneumococcal vaccination was administered...the team noted an **8 cm hematoma within the muscles of her upper arm”*
- Regulatory agencies must be willing to modify problematic measures
- Clinicians need to report unintended consequences to regulatory agencies to allow these measures to be modified

## Take-Home Points

- Reporting policies may improve transparency in health care, increase hospital accountability for quality of care, and facilitate "pay-for-performance"
- Providers should be familiar with current measures being reported and the resources to keep updated
- Improving compliance with reported measures may entail unintended consequences
- Systems should be in place for monitoring, prevention, and reporting