UMass Memorial Cuts CLABSI Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center among the first-ever awardees in the National Awards Program to Recognize Progress in Eliminating Healthcare-Associated Infections CDC: Hospitals continue progress in preventing infections American Heart Association: Improvements in Door-to-Balloon Time in the US - 2005 to 2010 Thomson Reuters Top 10 Health Systems of 2011 UMass Memorial Diabetes Scorecard Cooley Dickinson Hospital: Better-than-National Infection Rate Drops Further Following UV Room Disinfection Mercy Medical Center, Implements a Program to Decrease Pressure Ulcers Lawrence General Hospital: Runner Up: Med/surg unit boosts safety and satisfaction with initiative care MetroWest Medical Center Demystifies Outpatient Satisfaction Partners Study on Falls Featured in JAMA Winchester Hospital: A Focus on Outcomes Southcoast Health System: Reducing the Use of Safety Sitters Partners: Coordinating Care for High-Risk Patients New Bedford Rehab's use of volumetric capnography Winchester Hospital -- Reducing IV-associated bloodstream infection Newton-Wellesley Hospital: eMAP Rx for Medication Errors? Reducing Surgical Site Infections at New England Baptist Hospital Milton Hospital Reduces Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections Cooley Dickinson Hospital's Positive Culture Led to Pressure Ulcer Improvements Beverly Hospital Implements Nurse-Led Program to Reduce Patient Falls Boston Medical Center Nurses Teach Pressure Ulcer Prevention Two Hospitals are Co-Winners of Betsy Lehman Patient Safety Award Making Strides at Jordan Hospital to Reduce Falls Telling Your Hospital's Story Public Reporting of Serious Reportable Events Winchester Hospital's Hand-Hygiene Competency Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Wins $4.9 Million Grant for Program to Improve Patient Outcomes Within 30-Day Window of Discharge

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Hospital Quality and Safety Data: Why it Matters

Public interest in the quality and safety of patient care continues to grow. Hospitals welcome transparency about their performance when performance measures are grounded in good science and are designed to make fair comparisons across institutions. Performance data can offer several benefits:

  • Useful information for making decisions about where to obtain healthcare
  • Performance measures help healthcare professionals and institutions improve the care they deliver
  • Transparency about performance provides extra motivation to improve.

The Hospital Performance Measures You'll Find Here

PatientCareLink provides several kinds of data about hospital performance that can help the public make decisions and help hospitals make their care even better. The performance measure data presented here include measures selected from nationally and internationally trusted sources, including the National Quality Forum and the Hospital Quality Alliance.

Performance data included here cover:

  • Hospital nurse staffing, both planned and actual, by day of the week and work shift
  • Nursing-sensitive clinical performance measures of how well hospitals prevent pressure ulcers, patient falls, and patient falls with injury
  • Measures that reflect how reliably hospitals deliver the kinds of care that have been demonstrated to improve the outcomes of patient care for heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, and surgical care

Elsewhere on PatientCareLink (see About PatientCareLink and For Patients and Families) you can find links to other useful information on the quality and safety of hospital care, along with information about what patients and families can do to help improve the care they receive and to take greater control of their health and healthcare decisions.


A Note on Data Accuracy:  Hospitals were trained in the nursing-sensitive measure specifications and data collection and reporting requirements. Most hospitals reported data for a pilot test conducted in the spring of 2006, where they had the chance to apply their training and develop their data collection systems. The hospitals have provided signed statements that they have complied with the reporting specifications.
Nonetheless, it is possible that reporting errors have occurred or that reporting errors were not identified by a hospital until after the database was closed to reporting to permit preparation of the website and related analyses. Readers should review the hospital comments that accompany the data and that are accessible through a link on their data page to see if the hospital has identified any data accuracy issues.
As hospitals continue to gain experience with collection and reporting of this data, the accuracy and reliability of the data will continually improve. Any corrections of data that are reported to us for the period covered in the data display will be corrected when that data is combined with data for subsequent periods and updated on the website.
The Massachusetts Hospital Association and the Massachusetts Organization of Nurse Executives facilitated the transmission and display of hospital reported data. Neither organization is responsible for any error in the data submitted

To begin reviewing Performance Data, select a hospital: