Quality Care

State and National Reports

Below is a list of organizations that collect quality data from hospitals in Wisconsin and the nation. Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin voluntarily provide data to these organizations, which in turn publish reports on their Web sites so that healthcare consumers may view and compare data for selected clinical areas.

You may navigate directly to these Web sites via the links in the box below, or read more about the organizations in the narrative below the box (the narrative text also contains links to the sites).

Links to Quality Sites

CheckPoint from the Wisconsin Hospital Association
Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality
The Leapfrog Group
Hospital Compare from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

These links open in new windows. Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin have provided these links as a convenience for patients and visitors to this site. We are not responsible for the content of external sites.

Wisconsin Quality Data

CheckPoint^SM — Froedtert Hospital, as a member of the Wisconsin Hospital Association, participates in the CheckPoint program that provides data on evidence-based quality measures. The program is intended to give healthcare seekers information on quality of care.

Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality — Froedtert & the Medical College are founding members of the Collaborative for Healthcare Quality (WCHQ), a group of healthcare organizations working together to improve the quality care in the state. The work of the Collaborative is based on the principle that focusing on quality improvement will result in better care for patients and more rational costs. Working together, sharing information and striving toward best practices raises the performance bar for all healthcare providers.

The Collaborative includes hospitals, physician organizations and health plans as well as business and labor partners from throughout the state. Many organizations joined the Collaborative in 2004, including 12 hospitals, 8 physician groups and 3 health plans. Its 2005 Performance and Progress Report includes data on 45 measures from 19 hospitals, 14 multi-specialty physician groups and 7 healthcare plans.

National Quality Data

The Leapfrog Group — Froedtert & the Medical College are members of The Leapfrog Group, a business coalition that tracks and reports patient safety issues in hospitals across the nation.

The Leapfrog Group is made up of companies large enough to have an impact on the healthcare marketplace. The organization tracks safety concerns — such as problems with medication doses and legibility of physician orders, looks at safety initiatives within hospitals, and gives consumers information they can use to make more informed hospital choices.

Leapfrog's initiatives set specific standards for patient safety and take a close look at medical systems, procedures and policies that have been proven to impact patient care. Froedtert & the Medical College compare to Leapfrog’s standards with:

Computerized Drug Ordering — this ordering process allows doctors to enter prescriptions into a computer instead of writing them down on paper. The computer system is also capable of cross-checking prescriptions for potentially dangerous drug interactions. Froedtert & the Medical College are planning to implement a system that allows all physicians to order tests and drugs in a computer environment — eliminating medical errors that derive from legibility issues in hand-written physician orders.
ICU Staffing — specially trained physicians are needed to take care of critically ill patients in intensive care units (ICUs). It has been proven that ICU “intensivists” greatly increase patient survival rates in ICUs. Froedtert & the Medical College already have dedicated intensivists on staff.
Number of Procedures — a good way of rating hospital quality is to track the number of certain high-risk treatments or procedures that are performed in a year. It has been proven that patients who go to hospitals that frequently perform these high-risk treatments or procedures, or to hospitals that have demonstrated a good record for patient outcomes, have the best chance of surviving and successfully recovering. Froedtert & the Medical College meet most of the criteria set by Leapfrog, which include the number of procedures performed in cardiac surgery, cancer surgery, and low birth weight or fetal anomaly deliveries.
National Quality Forum — the National Quality Forum (NQF) is a public-private partnership who’s mission is to improve the healthcare system to provide safe, timely, compassionate and accountable care using best practices. The NQF seeks to develop a common vision for healthcare quality improvement, create a foundation for standardized healthcare performance data collection and reporting and identify a national strategy for healthcare quality improvement. The report issued details on 30 safe healthcare practices that should be universally utilized in applicable clinical care settings to reduce the risk of harm to patients. Froedtert & the Medical College are involved in reviewing and implementing these “leaps.”

Hospital Compare — Froedtert Hospital is among more than 3,900 hospitals in the United States participating in Hospital Compare, which compares the quality of care that hospitals provide for adult patients with a heart attack, heart failure or pneumonia, or who are having surgery.

The site was created by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, along with the Hospital Quality Alliance to make it easier for consumers to make informed healthcare decisions.

In each category (heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgery), the recommended care proven to give the best results to most adults is described. When you select a hospital, you will see how the care the hospital provides compares to the average for all reporting hospitals in the United States and to the average for all reporting hospitals in the state. For example, when you select Froedtert Hospital, you can view Froedtert’s quality data alongside data from other reporting hospitals in the country and other reporting hospitals in Wisconsin.

On March 28, 2008, Hospital Compare also presented results from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, which collected data on patient satisfaction. As part of its commitment to transparency, Froedtert Hospital voluntarily participates in this survey.

Use Caution When Reviewing Healthcare “Report Cards”

While Froedtert & the Medical College work diligently every day to improve care quality, we recognize that reporting on quality measures can be confusing for people trying to compare healthcare organizations. Adding to this confusion is the many healthcare report cards that claim to grade hospitals and physicians.

According to a recent report by the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), the most important criticism from a 2003 UHC report still applies: Healthcare report cards are misdirecting people who rely on faulty ratings. A criticism of these report cards is their inability to grade healthcare providers in a head-to-head (“apples to apples”) comparison. In fact, when hospitals from different rating categories were compared individually, risk-adjusted mortality rates were either comparable or even better in the lower-rated hospitals in more than 90 percent of comparisons.

To learn more, read the entire UHC report.

Six Sigma Quality Initiative Reduces Errors

To reduce medical errors and improve operational efficiency, in 1999 Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin were one of the first hospitals in the country to adapt Six Sigma.

Developed and trademarked by Motorola and popularized by GE, Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating errors. It is considered to be the most sophisticated quality approach available. In 1999, Froedtert & the Medical College formed a consortium with the American Society for Quality to use Six Sigma to reduce medical errors and improve operating efficiency.

Since 1999, Froedtert has deployed more than 60 interdisciplinary Six Sigma teams and trained about 90 members of Froedtert’s leadership team. Many of the teams are composed of direct caregivers such as nurses, physicians, pharmacists, social workers, case managers and physical therapists. Patients have also served on many project teams and provide their unique perspective on processes targeted for improvement. Team members define why a project is important, identify the causes of a problem, assist with collecting data, analyze the data, arrive at solutions, implement the pilot project and maintain improvements.

After many years of experience with Six Sigma, many improvements have been attained:

A Six Sigma interdisciplinary team won the Baxter 2005 Excellence in Patient Safety Award at the American Association of Critical Care Nurses National Teaching Institute and Critical Care Expo. The award recognized a pilot project in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit to improve patient safety related to insulin therapy. Following the pilot, all protocols and guidelines were approved and formally implemented.
Telemetry response time has been reduced on the Cardiology floor to an average of 30 seconds.
Inpatient falls have been reduced on the Blood and Marrow Transplant Unit by 52 percent and on the Hematology/Oncology Unit by 26 percent. Implementation of this program throughout the hospital is planned for early 2007.

Six Sigma initiatives completed in 2005/2006 were successful in:

Ensuring that any additional findings reported in the final results of a CT scan are promptly communicated to the staff physician

Decreasing wait time for patients in centralized registration

Improving communication with the patient about the inpatient discharge process

Reducing wait time for patients in the outpatient lab

Improving accuracy, legibility and verification of patient identification

Reducing medication turnaround time

Improving glycemic (blood sugar) control in the post operative period

Reducing wait time in the GI Lab and improving efficiencies in the Pulmonary Functions Lab.

Through Six Sigma, Froedtert & the Medical College are creating value through better operational processes and improved patient safety and satisfaction.

Last Review Date: April 2, 2008

Online Editor(s): Christopher Sadler