Welcome to the Minnesota Hospital Quality Report, a site with information by hospitals on quality of care and patients’ experiences. Consumers can use this information to help make decisions about future hospital care. The site includes two different types of information:

1. How Hospitals Perform on Quality
This site gives you a snapshot of hospitals’ performance in five key areas: heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, infection prevention (new measures as of Nov. 2009) and surgical care. Performance is displayed through “quality of care” measures. These measures describe how often certain practices of care have been followed.

Another way to look at performance is through the Appropriate Care Measure (ACM). A more patient-focused measure, the ACM shows whether a patient received ALL of the “appropriate or right care” (recommended treatments) that they should have received, based on their clinical condition. Each patient is unique and may not be eligible for every type of care for a condition. The ACM takes patient individuality into consideration, looking at one patient and their episode of care, related to their specific condition.

2. How Patients Rate their Care
For the first time, comparable ratings on patients’ hospital experiences is publicly available. A national survey, completed by patients, measures the frequency of important aspects of care, such as communication with nurses and doctors as well as pain management.

Using Quality Information
It is worth noting that a hospital’s quality is more than just the sum of these particular measures. Hospitals provide care for many other illnesses and conditions not addressed on this Web site. The information provided here can help you start a conversation with your health care providers about getting the care you, your family or friends need. Click here for information about other sources of information about hospital quality, and how you can put it to use.