Chester County Hospital in West Chester, PA has been awarded a five-star rating - the highest possible score - by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for the second year in a row. In Pennsylvania, only twelve hospitals were given a five-star rating from CMS. Chester County Hospital tops the list and is one of just two hospitals in the county to receive the prestigious ranking.
Published by CMS, the assessments are designed to help consumers compare hospitals at more than 4,000 facilities nationwide. Only nine percent of eligible hospitals in the United States received the esteemed grade in 2017. The national CMS rating average is three out of five stars.
Hospitals have reported data on quality measures to CMS, a federal government entity, for well over a decade. In an effort to make this data more transparent and accessible to the general public, CMS summarized this data into a single star rating for each hospital. The agency publicizes these ratings on Hospital Compare, a consumer-oriented website that provides information on the quality of care patients receive at health care facilities.
According to Mary Lou Lafreniere, director of Quality Management at Chester County Hospital, this rating is important for health care consumers because it provides a reliable way to make an informed decision when seeking care. "The easy-to-understand five-star hospital ratings empower people to compare hospitals and ask important questions about the quality of the facilities they are comparing."
The one to five-star scale was developed with public input and a Technical Expert Panel. The methodology for the ratings is continuously analyzed and enhanced through public feedback to ensure individuals are able to compare hospitals based on the information most pertinent to their choice of health care facilities.
"The consecutive five-star ratings from CMS place Chester County Hospital in an elite group of health care facilities," explained Michael J. Duncan, president and CEO. "The high-scoring evaluation is a tribute to our care teams, medical staff and nurses who put patient safety and quality at the forefront of care."
The CMS five-star rating adds to Chester County Hospital's impressive record of recent accolades. Earlier this year the hospital received its fourth consecutive "A" Hospital Safety Grade from the Leapfrog Group. It was also named one of the five best hospitals in the region by U.S. News and World Report, making it the highest ranked hospital in Chester County. And in March, Truven Health Analytics listed the hospital as one of the top 100 in the country. "These rankings reinforce our promise to be the leading provider of care in the region and a national model for quality, service excellence and fiscal stewardship," Duncan states.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administers the Medicare program and partners with state governments to administer Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Health Insurance Marketplace. The agency publicly launched the hospital rating system in 2016. The overall summary rating is based on a cumulative score from 57 measures across seven different areas, including mortality, readmission, safety of care, patient experience, efficient use of medical imaging, and timeliness and effectiveness of care. The full list, broken down by state, can be found on the Medicare website.