Comparative Health data sets

The health care industry is flush with comparative data sets which can be compared against an organization's outcome measures to contrast how a health care organization is performing in key metrics. Wager, Lee and Glasser list five basic categories of comparative health care data sets: patient satisfaction, practice patterns, health plans, clinical indicators and populations measures.

Patient satisfaction is primary obtained by survey data. NRC+Picker, Press Ganey, the Gallop Organization, and other private entities provide consulting services to health care organizations, one of the key services of which is patient satisfaction surveys.

• NRC+Picker (National Research Corporation and the Picker Institute): nrcpicker.com
• Press Ganey Associates: www.pressganey.com
• The Gallup Organization: healthcare.gallup.com

Practice patterns for health organizations can be viewed and contrasted with the Commonwealth Fund Quality Chartbook and the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. The latter of which provides the ability to customize reports around their outcome measures against practice patterns, from mostly from Medicare data sets.

• Leatherman, S., and McCarthy, D. (2002). Quality of Healthcare in the United States: A Chartbook. New York: The Commonwealth Fund. www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=221238
• The Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences, Dartmouth Medical School. (2008). The Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare. Chicago: American Hospital Publishing. www.dartmouthatlas.org

Data sets on health plans can primarily be found from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). NCQA performs two major activities: performance measurement and accreditation. For these efforts they developed the Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS) that currently lists seventy-six measures across multiple domains.

• National Committee for Quality: www.ncqa.org

Clinical indicator data sets can primarily be found from two sources: The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The JCAHC allows for queries based on a variety of parameters and can obtain hospital performance measures and accreditation status. The CMS has a developed a variety of quality programs in conjunction with the Hospital Quality Alliance, for physicians practices, home care, hospitals and nursing homes.

• Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
  • Quality Check: www.qualitycheck.org
• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Medicare Clinical Indicators
  • Hospital Compare: www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov
  • Nursing Home Compare: www.medicare.gov/NHCompare
  • Home Health Compare: www.medicare.gov/HHCompare

Population measures are generally acquired at the state and local levels from a variety of sources such as hospital and provider bills. Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) track and maintain a trove of data on population health care data.

• State and local health departments
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center of Health Statistics: www.cdc.gov/nchs
• AHRQ—Health Care Innovations Exchange (including Quality and Disparities Reports): www.innovations.ahrq.gov

The health care industry has a variety of governmental bodies and accrediting agencies that collect, maintain and provide to the public, comparative health care data sets. These data sets are an invaluable resource for optimizing the functioning of an organization and allows for an introspective view of an organization, coupled with and compared against external benchmarks and/or standards.

Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., Glaser, J. P. (2009). Health care information systems: A practical approach for health care management. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.