The Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association (MHA) and the Organization of Nurse Leaders of MA, RI, NH & CT (ONL) have publicly posted the latest available selected nursing-sensitive care measures, most of which are endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF), for 74 Bay State hospitals. Reported measures include pressure ulcer prevalence, patient falls, and patient falls with injury.

To view the updated reports, visit www.patientcarelink.org and click on “Healthcare Provider Data” and then Massachusetts Hospital Data” and then “Individual Hospital Performance Measures.” Individual hospitals’ reports can be selected from there.

The reports now incorporate the nursing-sensitive measure data reported for the period April 2016 – March 2017. In addition to individual hospitals’ results, the PatientCareLink site also includes statistical appendices, reporting history documents, narrative comments if any were provided, and peer group comparison rates based on hospital size. Statistical appendices are accessible through the link immediately beneath each hospital’s bar charts, and additional comments can be found through the “Click here to read Hospital’s comments” link to the right of a given hospital name.

“Massachusetts hospitals are committed to providing the highest quality and safest care possible,” said Pat Noga, PhD, RN, Vice President of Clinical Affairs for MHA. “Our hospitals publicly post important quality and staffing data on the PatientCareLink website to offer patients and caregivers alike direct access to this important information, to continually improve care delivery, and to provide additional confidence in the care patients receive.”

Massachusetts was the first state to voluntarily make hospital staffing and nursing-sensitive quality information public. The PatientCareLink website is a great resource and gives patients an open and transparent view of the hospitals providing them care. In addition to the nursing-sensitive measure data, the website also displays information from the Hospital Compare website, where the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publish quality measure data from hospitals throughout the country. Unit-specific nurse staffing data is also available on the PatientCareLink site.

Hospitals welcome transparency about their performance when performance measures are grounded in good science and are designed to make fair comparisons across institutions. Publicly reported performance data can offer several benefits, including:

*  Offering useful information for making decisions about where to obtain healthcare
*  Helping healthcare professionals and institutions improve the care they deliver; and
*  Providing extra motivation to improve performance.

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