The Charlotte-based Premier Healthcare Alliance's QUEST: High Performing Hospitals collaborative has expanded from 157 charter members to include 293 hospitals across 40 states, an 87 percent increase in participation since the project began.
The project is collaboration between these hospitals to share, compare and improve their performance as they aim to reach the highest standards of care. Premier says QUEST charter member hospitals prevented 24,820 deaths and reduced healthcare spending by nearly $4.5 billion in three years. This was done, Premier says, by analyzing mortality, cost, evidence-based care, patient experience and harm performance indicators in hospitals to identify and implement opportunities for improvement.
The goals for QUEST’s next round of improvements are to improve mortality reduction goals from 18 percent to 24 percent, cost of care goals from $5,720 per discharge to $5,690, and evidence-based care goals from 84 percent to 95 percent. It will also see hospitals continue to work to improve the patient experience, as measured by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, and eliminate all preventable harm events.
The hospitals, Premier says, have been challenged to measure and improve performance in readmissions. The goal is to reduce their all-cause 30-day readmission rates to just 8 percent. National estimates suggest that most hospitals have readmission rates ranging from 18 to 25 percent, depending on the clinical condition.
