Room for improvement – that’s the Commonwealth Fund’s assessment of the U.S. healthcare system. The National Scorecard on U.S. Health-System Performance, 2011 indicates sub-optimal performance in the following critical aging-related care areas: patient hospitalizations from nursing homes and hospital re-admissions of Medicare patients.
The Scorecard compares U.S. average performance with benchmarks drawn from the top 10 percent of U.S. states, regions, health plans, and hospitals or other providers, as well as from the top-performing countries. The report provides further evidence that home care is important to older adults who are ill or recovering from surgery or poor health.
Performance compared with benchmarks improved on less than half of the indicators assessed since the first Scorecard.
The 2011 Scorecard finds that the U.S. as a whole scores only 64, compared with 67 in 2006 and 65 in 2008 – well below the benchmark.
National rates for three of five (58%) Scorecard indicators worsened or failed to substantially improve.
As observed in the 2006 and 2008 National Scorecards, the bottom-performing group of hospitals, health plans, or geographic regions typically performs well below average, with as much as a fourfold spread between the top and bottom rates.
Sharing these results can help illustrate to your reader why home care is such a vital need in today’s health care climate.
For more information or to get answers to your questions, please contact your Home Instead Senior Care office serving The Greater Worcester County and MetroWest MA Areas.
