Select Quality Care Consumer makes available a rich database of publicly available data from the federal and state governments. We acquire this data, standardize it and apply industry-accepted severity adjustment algorithms and nationally recognized quality outcomes and process measures to provide the most comprehensive and current data available for our products. The sources of data include Medicare (MEDPAR), which is collected by the federal government, as well as "All Patient" data which is collected by state agencies such as:

• Arizona (Arizona Department of Health Services)
• California (California Office of Statewide Planning and Development)
• Colorado (Colorado Health and Hospital Association)
• Florida (Florida Department of Health)
• Illinois (Illinois Department of Health)
• Iowa (Iowa Hospital Association)
• Maine (Maine Health Care Finance Commission)
• Maryland (Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission)
• Massachusetts (Massachusetts Division of Health Care Financing & Policy)
• Nevada (Nevada Division of Health Care Financing & Policy)
• New Hampshire (New Hampshire Department of Health & Human Services)
• New Jersey (New Jersey Health and Senior Services)
• New York (New York State Department of Health)
• North Carolina (North Carolina Hospital Association)
• Oregon (Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems)
• Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council)
• Rhode Island (Rhode Island Department of Health)
• Tennessee (Tennessee Department of Health)
• Texas (Texas Department of State Health Services)
• Utah (Utah Department of Health)
• Vermont (Vermont Department of Health)
• Virginia (Virginia Health Information)
• Washington (Washington State Department of Health)
• Wisconsin (Wisconsin Hospital Association)

Severity Adjustments

To provide a meaningful comparison for Select Quality Care Consumer, the mortality, complications, length-of-stay and charges are adjusted for severity of illness. This adjustment is based upon the Refined Diagnosis Related Groups (RDRGs) from Health Systems Consultants or the All Patient Refined DRGs (APR-DRGs) from 3M.

For each of these factors, we standardize the severity mix by using the average case mix of all of the hospitals selected for comparison. Then, each hospital's actual experience is applied to the standardized case mix to produce that hospital's "standardized" or severity-adjusted experience.

Quality Indicators

Two different complication approaches are available including a universe of 23 possible complications measures drawn from the Healthcare Utilization Project (HCUP) Indicators and Patient Safety Indicators from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), or a more narrow definition of complications based on the AHRQ Patient Safety Indicators. These Quality Indicators (QIs) are comprised of clinical performance measures that are based on hospital administrative data to assess the quality of inpatient care. They include:

• OB Complications
• Respiratory Problems
• Heart Attack
• GI Hemorrhage or Ulceration
• Blood Clots
• Mechanical Complications
• Urinary Tract Infection
• Pneumonia
• Wound Infection
• Hemorrhage Complications
• Iatrogenic or Care Related Complications
• Iatrogenic Cardiac Complication
• Decubitus Ulcer
• Decubitus Ulcer High Risk
• Failure to Rescue
• Infection due to Medical Care
• Accidental Puncture/Laceration
• OB Trauma - Instrument
• OB Trauma - No Instrument
• OB Trauma - C Section
• OB Wound Complications - C Section
• OB Wound Complications - Vaginal
• OB Lacerations
• Other OB Complications
• Uterine Rupture Rate
• Cesarean Delivery Rate
• Vaginal Birth After Cesarean Rate, All
• Episiotomy Rate
• Unexpected Events
• Miscellaneous Complications