As I've read this week's materials I've thought about recent professional articles and discussions about how fragmented our healthcare system is.

One of the ways we're fragmented is a lack of consistent information to benchmark all providers with each other.  It seems like the clinical data and results are the most standardized.  I work in long-term healthcare and the MDS patient assessment system used by all providers produces monthly quality indicators that show you your organization's placement in percentiles for your state.

There is starting to be some uniformity of other data, like customer satisfaction.  The American Healthcare Association and its state affiliates have begun to recommend MyInnerView for assessing customer satisfaction.  Of course, it is optional for each company to use; currently our company of 75 facilities still uses our own company-generated surveys.  This limits the legitimate comparisons to other providers if you want to point to data that support your claim as an industry leader.

Do the AHA, MGMA, or other sector groups recommend one company for customer satisfaction or other areas of data?  From what I recall, some HCOs can use PressGaney, HealthGrades, the Jackson Group, etc.  Whenever reports are released touting a HCO's standing, I take the results with a grain of salt because the comparison groups could be only the HCOs that participate with that company, not all providers across the country or a designated geographic area.