Leapfrog works with experts at Thomson Medstat™, an independent data analysis organization, to score and rank the data it receives from hospitals participating in Leapfrog Hospital Insights.

The hospital data are first scored into two categories: quality and efficiency.

The quality category combines measures about appropriate care, mortality rates (or, death rates), and complications along with information about how sick the patient is.  The quality measures for each of the five clinical areas are then weighted (or, adjusted), depending on how much each measure impacts mortality (risk of death), morbidity (risk of illness) or complications for that clinical area.  These adjustments are based on available published research. The results are then summarized into a Quality Rate for each clinical area.

The efficiency category includes the same measures for each of the five clinical areas:

• average length of stay in routine care units
• average length of stay in special care units, such as ICUs
• readmission rate within 14 days to the same facility

The information on average length-of-stay is adjusted for patient differences across all hospitals participating in the program. The results are then summarized into an Efficiency Rate for each clinical area.

After a hospital’s Quality and Efficiency rates are calculated for each clinical area, the results from all participating hospitals are compared to each other. Based on their results, hospitals are put into categories called performance groups. There are four performance groups. The hospitals with the top results are put into Performance Group 1; those with the lowest results are put into Performance Group 4. Each hospital is assigned a Quality Performance Group rating and an Efficiency Performance Group rating. Then, these two ratings are combined into an Overall Performance Group rating for each hospital.

On our web site for this reporting period, Leapfrog is thrilled to recognize hospitals that were top performers overall (hospitals that met criteria for Performance Group 1 for both quality and efficiency) in a given clinical area in our new Leapfrog Hospital Insights initiative. We also separately acknowledge and commend those hospitals that participated in this new hospital public reporting initiative but were not top performers overall (hospitals that did not meet the criteria for Performance Group 1 for both quality and efficiency; these hospitals met the criteria for Performance Groups 2, 3, or 4 for Overall Performance) in a given clinical area.

The number of hospitals participating in Leapfrog Hospital Insights continues to grow.  As more hospitals participate in future reporting periods, Leapfrog plans to make publicly available more detailed information about the quality, efficiency, and overall performance of each participating hospital in each clinical area.

The data from hospitals participating in Leapfrog Hospital Insights are compiled, scored and released twice a year.

Click below for more information on the scoring of the Leapfrog Hospital Insights measures:

• AMI measures
• CABG measures
• PCI measures 
• Pneumonia measures
• Deliveries/Newborn measures