The sharp variation across states suggested by the study includes differences in access, quality of care and costs. For example, rates of hospital readmissions (within 30 days of a previous hospital stay) among Medicare beneficiaries ranged from a high of 23 percent of hospital admissions in Nevada to a low of 13 percent in Oregon.
The report, Aiming Higher: Results from the 2009 State Scorecard on Health System Performance, is a follow-up to the Commission’s 2007 State Scorecard report. The study ranks states on 38 indicators in the areas of access, prevention and treatment quality, avoidable hospital use and costs, healthy lives and equity.
Top performers on the 2009 scorecard include Vermont, Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Maine and New Hampshire.
The report found that national efforts to measure, benchmark and publicly report performance had a marked effect on quality improvements at the state level. Following a national effort to track and report hospital treatment data, nearly all states improved on measures of treatment for heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and prevention of surgical complications.
The report also found that health coverage for adults has declined overall but varies widely by state. For example, 32 percent of working-age adults were uninsured in Texas compared to only 7 percent in Massachusetts.
Read the Commonwealth Fund’s 2009 State Scorecard report.
