Hawaii Dashboard on Health Care Quality Compared to All States

From US Department of Health and Human Services

Overall Health Care Quality

The graphics on this page are summaries of measures reported in the National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) for Hawaii. Above is a summary of over 150 measures in the NHQR reported at the State level, and below are graphics describing specific types of care, settings of care, and care in clinical areas. Select the graphics to find the underlying measures.

How is State performance scored? (select this link or Methods)

Each graphic shows a State's balance of below average, average, and above average measures compared to all States reporting such data in the United States. The graphics have five categories: very weak, weak, average, strong, and very strong. This State's performance for the most recent data year is described by a solid arrow or solid triangle; a dashed arrow or hollow triangle describes the baseline year. A missing arrow or triangle means there were insufficient data to create the summary measure.

An arrow or triangle pointing to "Very weak" means all or nearly all included measures for a State are below average within a given data year. An arrow or triangle pointing to "Very strong" indicates that all or nearly all available measures for a State are above average within a given data year.

How is State performance scored? (select this link or Methods)

Additional Resources for Understanding Quality in Hawaii

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Health Care Report Card Compendium is a searchable database of health care report cards for comparing the quality of health plans, hospitals, medical groups, individual physicians, nursing homes, and other providers of care. The report cards demonstrate approaches to reporting data and are a resource for those interested in creating health care report cards.

Search the Health Care Report Card Compendium.

AHRQ Health Care Innovations Exchange: A searchable database of successful and attempted health care innovations, quality tools, and learning and networking opportunities—a resource for those interested in developing and adopting innovations in health care delivery. The Innovations Exchange includes information for Hawaii.

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Leapfrog: How Safe are Hawaii Hospitals? June, 2012

SA: HMSA Exec Whines About Hospital Ratings

SA: Isles lag in patient surgery safety

The low patient safety score was based on Hawaii hospitals' score for using appropriate antibiotics to help prevent wound infection after surgery, providing antibiotics within one hour of surgery and discontinuing antibiotics on time.

Wyoming was the only state that ranked worse than Hawaii in patient safety during surgeries, according to the report, which was issued last month and based on more than 150 quality measures.

Hawaii also received poor ratings for the care of pneumonia patients in hospitals as well as hospice patients who received the right amount of pain medication and the number of patients receiving kidney transplants. In overall health care quality, Hawaii ranked in the middle at No. 24 among the states and Washington, D.C.

"There's a pattern with hospitals having problems," said Ernest Moy, lead author of the report. "Hospitals are not adhering to recommendations, or they're not documenting them. It could be that people in Hawaii, a lot of times they might be getting antibiotics but might not get the ideal antibiotic or might not get it at the right time."

Other studies have scored the state poorly on hospital-based patient care in general, he said.

"They are on the worse 20 percent or so for many of the measures," Moy said. "There seems to be more problems in the hospitals as opposed to doctors' offices. I would suggest Hawaii's policymakers take a look at hospital care and hospice."