Quality Quarterly

Analysis Paper: Using HQI’s Hospital Similarity Clusters Improves Quality Comparisons

Key Points:  

  • Evaluating a hospital’s performance against its peers by comparing hospital quality metrics is important, but identifying appropriate peers can be complex.  
  • Clustering hospitals based on their similarity across multiple characteristics — such as inpatient admission volume and hospital type — can help identify more comparable peers.  
  • The Hospital Quality Institute’s (HQI’s) Hospital Similarity Clusters allow for comparisons and provide insights, as demonstrated in a recent article on sepsis mortality rates. 

    • HQIP Update: Hospital Enrollment, Utilization Trends, and Platform Enhancements

    Executive Summary

    The Hospital Quality Improvement Platform (HQIP) is a secure, web-based platform that provides quality measures for conditions significantly affected by hospital quality initiatives. HQIP offers hospitals access to clinically detailed, timely reports to help identify opportunities for improvement and areas for focus. It is available at no cost to all California Hospital Association members, does not connect to hospitals’ electronic health records systems, and utilizes data that hospitals already report to the California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI), the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative.   

    Anaphylactic Shock Highlights the Crisis in Medication Safety

    This post has been archived and contains information that may be out of date.

    Key Takeaways 

  • Cases of anaphylaxis have risen by 33% 
  • Anaphylaxis is especially dangerous in perioperative settings where sterile drapes hide visible skin reactions, and sedated patients cannot report their symptoms 
  • Chlorhexidine has emerged as an increasingly frequent trigger 

    • The Relationship Between Hospital Sepsis Bundle Compliance and Sepsis Mortality

    This post has been archived and contains information that may be out of date.

    Key Points 

  • Statewide SEP-1 Sepsis Bundle compliance has increased over time. Sepsis mortality declined overall but spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating challenges in sustaining improvements. 
  • Higher hospital SEP-1 Sepsis Bundle compliance is associated with lower mortality rates, but the correlation weakened over time (from r = -.31 in 2017 to r = -.17 in 2022) and varied significantly by hospital characteristics such as ownership type and transfer volume. 
  • Investor-owned hospitals and those with smaller sample sizes exhibited weaker or negligible relationships between compliance and mortality, highlighting the role of contextual factors and the need for hospital-specific strategies. 

    • Ozempic and Wegovy: Are These Popular Diabetes and Weight Loss Drugs Associated with Increases in Serious Side Effects?

    This post has been archived and contains information that may be out of date.

    Key Points:

  • Prescriptions for semaglutide, marketed under the names Ozempic and Wegovy, surged almost 3,000% in the U.S. from 2018 to 2022. 
  • Encounters of gallbladder inflammation in California hospitals surged by 492% during the study period, potentially linked to the slowed digestion caused by long-term semaglutide use. 
  • Hospital encounters in California related to acute kidney injuries rose by 18% and cases of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) increased by 27%, suggesting these may be emerging areas of concern for semaglutide users. 

    • End of 2024 HQIP Hospital Enrollment, Enhancements, and Utilization Trends 

    This post has been archived and contains information that may be out of date.

    Key Takeaways 

  • 243 of 476 California hospitals have signed participation agreements for the Hospital Quality Improvement Platform (HQIP). 
  • The reports with the highest number of visits in Q3 2024 were: CMS Hospital Compare Measures over Time Quality Transparency Dashboard (308 visits), Sepsis Incidence, Case Mortality, & Length of Stay (216 visits), and Inland Empire Health Plan 2024 Pay for Performance Program (183 visits). 
  • New reports include Inpatient Psychiatric Readmission, Pediatric All-Cause Readmission, and Surgical Operative Procedures. Future updates will feature exportable equity reports for Assembly Bill (AB) 1204 compliance and procedure-specific readmission measures. 

    • HQI Supports Hospitals in Their Quest for Patient Safety Excellence

    This post has been archived and contains information that may be out of date.

    We here at HQI are excited about the year ahead and continuing the collaborative work of enhancing patient safety and fostering a culture of excellence within hospitals. Our role is to support our members’ efforts toward providing the safest and highest quality care possible through education and the sharing of information and resources.

    New CMS Patient Safety Structural Measure Hinges on 25 Strategies, Practices to Prioritize Safety

    This post has been archived and contains information that may be out of date.

    Key Takeaways: 

  • Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Patient Safety Structural Measure (PSSM) is intended to improve hospital safety by focusing on structural elements that support a culture of safety 
  • Reporting begins in FY 2025 
  • Hospital Quality Institute has a leading-edge program to help hospitals meet the new requirements