AHCJ has updated and merged its version of the hospital mortality and readmission data available exclusively to members.
Going back to 2008 for mortality and 2009 for readmission to 2016 for both, journalists can download spreadsheet files to filter and find hospitals with histories of worse or better expected rates of patient outcomes within 30 days of discharge.
The AHCJ data – derived from the larger Hospital Compare database kept by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services – include outcomes for patients who had a heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, stroke, chronic pulmonary disease (COPD), or had a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedure. The data were simplified to these ailments or procedure because they are shared between mortality and readmission rates.
The CABG data was new and released in 2015. With this update, journalists can look at three years’ worth of those outcomes by individual hospitals.
The AHCJ page includes state and national numbers to help in comparison, and links to the raw numbers for journalists to delve even further. The page includes links to relevant tip sheets and stories that have been reported using the data.
