2006 National Healthcare Quality Report—At A Glance

Two-thirds of core quality measures that can be tracked over time show improvement while only 5% show deterioration. But the pace of quality improvement remains at 3.1% per year, on average, across the core measures.

Hospital quality measures are improving faster at 7.8% per year. In hospitals—

• Care for heart attack is improving at 15.0% per year.
• Care for pneumonia is improving at 11.7% per year.
• Care for heart failure is improving at 8.4% per year.
• Postoperative safety is improving at 7.3% per year.

Quality measures for treatment of acute illness are improving at 4.3% per year, on average, while improvements in preventive care and management of chronic disease are lagging.

Quality varies widely across States. Compared with the best performing State, the worst performing State had—

• Over 8 times as many nursing home residents in physical restraints.
• Over 6 times as many hemodialysis patients inadequately dialyzed.
• Over 5 times as many asthma hospitalizations among children.
• Over 4 times as many women without early prenatal care.

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