US News and World Report, a leading media outlet in the USA, has added a treatment-based measure from the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Get With The Guidelines-Stroke programme to its national stroke hospital rating system “for the first time”. Inclusion of this measure—which reports specifically on the timing in which thrombolytic medications are given to a person experiencing a stroke—reinforces the impact of data transparency and highlights the importance of timely, lifesaving treatment, as per an AHA press release.
The release notes that, for a long time, US News and World Report has factored hospitals’ public reporting status into its rankings; a public transparency measure based on registry participation accounts for 2.5% of the publication’s ‘Best Regional Hospitals’ rankings. This year, an additional 2.5% of each hospital’s stroke score will be based on the speed at which eligible patients receive intravenous (IV) thrombolytics—a clot-dissolving medication used to treat ischaemic stroke, the timely administration of which is a “critical driver” of patient outcomes.
Data from the AHA’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke registry power this new measure. Under US News and World Report’s updated approach, hospitals publicly reporting an 85%-or-higher rate of IV thrombolytic administration within 60 minutes of arrival receive full credit, while hospitals with lower rates receive partial credit, and those that do not report publicly receive no credit for this or the transparency measure.
“One of the biggest differentiating advantages of our data is that we capture reasons for non-treatment, which most electronic health records and other data sources lack. These data are critical in establishing the credibility of our quality measurement reporting systems,” said Lee Schwamm (Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, USA), an AHA volunteer who initially helped to establish the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke programme. “We applaud US News and World Report for including the time-to-thrombolytics measure—it speaks to the real-time impact of the Get With The Guidelines programme, and the association’s role in improving health outcomes through accelerating the translation of evidence into practice in cardiovascular and stroke care.”
“This new ranking component helps validate the association’s registry as a gold-standard resource and signals to hospitals the continued importance of stroke systems of care,” added Gregg Fonarow (University of California Los Angeles [UCLA], Los Angeles, USA), an AHA volunteer and member of the association’s Stroke Systems of Care Advisory Group.
The AHA’s recent release goes on to posit that public reporting plays a “vital role” in advancing both hospital performance and patient empowerment, fostering a team-based approach to accountability, showcasing efforts to implement quality improvement initiatives, and helping identify areas that require attention. It also opens the door to inclusion in national hospital rankings, further incentivising high-quality care. And, for individuals, public reporting offers a “transparent snapshot of hospital performance”, increasing awareness of key care measures and supporting more informed decision-making over where to receive treatment. Together, these benefits drive a culture of continuous improvement and trust in healthcare, the AHA release concludes.
