Alternative pay-for-performance scoring methods: implications for quality improvement and patient outcomes.
BACKGROUND
Pay-for-performance programs typically rate hospitals using a composite summary score in which process measures are weighted by the total number of treatment opportunities. Alternative methods that weight process measures according to how hospitals organize care and the range for possible improvement may be more closely related to patient outcomes.


OBJECTIVE
To develop a hospital-level summary process measure adherence score that reflects how hospitals organize cardiac care and the range for possible improvement; and to compare associations of hospital adherence to this score and adherence to a composite score based on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services scoring system with inpatient mortality.


METHODS
Hospital-level analysis of 7 process measures for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and 4 process measures for heart failure at 4226 hospitals, and inpatient mortality after AMI at 1351 hospitals in the United States. Data are from the Hospital Compare and Joint Commission Core Measures databases for October 2004 through September 2006.


METHODS
Associations between composite scores based on Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services methodology and alternative adherence scores with inpatient survival after AMI.


RESULTS
In principal components analysis, hospital cardiac care varied between hospitals largely along the lines of "clinical" (ie, pharmacologic interventions) and "administrative" (ie, patient instructions or counseling) activities. A scoring system reflecting this organization was strongly associated with inpatient survival and fit the mortality data better than the composite score. Higher administrative activities scores, holding the clinical activities score fixed, were associated with lower survival.


CONCLUSIONS
In-hospital cardiac care is organized by clinical and administrative processes of care. Pay-for-performance schemes that incentivize hospitals to focus on administrative process measures may be associated with decreased adherence to clinical processes. A pay-for-performance scheme that acknowledges these factors may be associated with improved inpatient mortality.
Glickman
Seth W
SW
Center for Clinical and Genetic Economics, Duke Clinical Research Institute, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, USA.
Boulding
William
W
Roos
Jason M T
JM
Staelin
Richard
R
Peterson
Eric D
ED
Schulman
Kevin A
KA
D014487:Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S.; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D006302:Health Services Research; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000401:mortality* / Q000628:therapy; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006761:Hospitals / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000401:mortality* / Q000628:therapy; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012052:Reimbursement, Incentive; D012107:Research Design; D015996:Survival Rate; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology