New and Updated Data on WhyNotTheBest.org

Updated and expanded performance data on measures of patient safety and health care quality are now available on The Commonwealth Fund's dedicated website, WhyNotTheBest.org. The new data, for measures developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, come from hospitals in 16 states (including the four newly added states of Massachusetts, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Virginia) and are based on reports from all payers—Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers. WhyNotTheBest.org is a unique source for exploring these data across states and regions.

In particular, new measures have been added to the following data sets:

• inpatient quality indicators, which track mortality and utilization rates for various conditions; 
• patient safety indicators, which track potentially avoidable complications and adverse events; and 
• prevention quality indicators, which measure hospital admissions that might have been avoided with better medical care outside of the hospital.