Looking at the numbers

Hospitals work to improve patient safety

Stratis Health has been working with nine Minnesota hospitals to improve surgical care by reducing surgical complications. The Surgical Care Improvement Project focuses on preventing complications in four areas that comprise 40 percent of the most common complications after major inpatient surgery: infection, blood clots, and adverse cardiac and respiratory events.

Results: Collectively the nine hospitals showed improvement, from baseline to remeasurement, on 7 of 8 measures shown. They exceeded five of the goals—benchmarks based on care levels being achieved by the Minnesota hospitals performing best on these measures.

Abbreviation Key

Trend graphs

The eight following trend graphs show quarterly rates for each measure against the CMS target, from the baseline in Quarter 1 2007 through Quarter 1 2010.

Stratis Health conducted this work as the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Minnesota, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. CMS goals were set using the ABC Method. Stratis Health conducts analytical work in support of assessing and improving health care quality and patient safety.