In Brief: 93 California Hospital Get Top Joint Commission Rating; Sharp HealthCare, Scripps Health Join San Diego RHIO

93 California Hospitals Get Top Joint Commission Rating

Ninety-three hospitals in California received the top performer designation from the Joint Commission for their performance on a variety of quality measures in 2012, up significantly from the prior years.

The Joint Commission surveys hospitals on measures and outcomes for care provided, including heart attacks, heart failure, pneumonia, surgical care, children’s asthma care, inpatient psychiatric services, venous thromboembolism (VTE) care, stroke care, and immunizations.

The Joint Commission, a healthcare accrediting agency based in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., noted that the number of top performer hospitals increased 77% in 2012. The California numbers closely correlate to this increase.

Altogether, 305 hospitals in California submitted data to the Joint Commission, compared to 302 in 2011, when 55 received the top performer designation. In 2010, 278 hospitals submitted data, and 34 were named top performers.

“More than half of Joint Commission-accredited hospitals have reached or have nearly reached top performer distinction, showing that we are approaching a time in which consistent excellence in hospital performance on these important quality measures is the new normal," said Mark R. Chassin, M.D., chief executive officer of the Joint Commission. "This means patients are getting better care thanks to the shared commitment by hospitals to using data and proven quality improvement methods to always do the right thing and improve quality and safety." 

Among those receiving the designations in California included 25 hospitals operated by Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente and eight operated by Ontario-based Prime Healthcare Services.

Sharp HealthCare, Scripps Health Join San Diego RHIO

San Diego's health information exchange has become an independent entity, renamed itself and added two of the region's most significant providers as participants.

The exchange is now called San Diego Health Connect, formerly known as the San Diego Regional Health Information Exchange. Scripps Health and Sharp HealthCare, the region's two biggest hospital operators, have also elected to participate in the exchange and allow their records to be shared with other providers.

“The commitments from Scripps and Sharp...go a long way toward demonstrating that San Diego Health Connect has advanced successfully from a federally-funded, university-based initiative to a self-sustaining, community-funded not-for-profit

organization with a greater reach," said Daniel J. Chavez, the exchange's executive director.

Current exchange participants incude Kaiser Permanente San Diego Medical Center, UC San Diego Health System, Rady Children's Hospital San Diego, VA San Diego Healthcare System, and a variety of community clinics.

The exchange received three years of grants from the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The funding ended in September, making the exchange an independent entity.