Event today in Boston -- Mortality Rates

Hospital Standardized Mortality Ratio:
A tool for consumer information and quality improvement?
Date: Monday, September 24, 2007, 9:30-11:30am
Location: Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, Daley Room
5th floor, China Trade Center, 2 Boylston Street, Boston, MA

Learn about the Hospital Standardized Mortality Ratio (HSMR).

Should hospital HSMR numbers be made public so that consumers can use this information in deciding where to get care?

Can the HSMR be used by hospitals to improve the care they provide?

Is the HSMR a reliable measure of mortality rates and one that can be used to compare hospitals' quality of care?

Speakers will address these questions and will provide perspectives on the use of HSMR for public reporting and for quality improvement within the hospital.

Professor Sir Brian Jarman, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Boston and Emeritus Professor at Imperial College, London, former President of the British Medical Association and developer of the HSMR.

Paul Levy, President and CEO, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Gregg Meyer, MD, MSc, Senior Vice President for Quality and Patient Safety for the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization.

John E. McDonough, PhD, Executive Director, Health Care for All.

Kenneth Sands, MD, Senior Vice President and Medical Director of Healthcare Quality, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Moderator: Dana Safran, Sc. D., Vice President of Performance Measurement and Improvement, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Associate Professor of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine.

Cosponsored by Health Care for All and the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors.

To register, go to http://www.hcfama.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewPage&pageID=615

For more information, contact Deb Wachenheim at 617-275-2902 or dwachenheim@hcfama.org or Paula Griswold at 617-272-8000 x152 or pgriswold@macoalition.org.