Comparison of Quality Improvement Activities in Safety Net and Non-Safety Net Hospitals.

Cohen AB, Restuccia JD, Kang R, Horwitt J, McHugh M, Hasnain-Wynia R. Comparison of Quality Improvement Activities in Safety Net and Non-Safety Net Hospitals. Poster session presented at: AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting; 2010 Jun 28; Boston, MA.

We surveyed a sample of hospitals in 2009 to determine how safety net hospitals compare with non-safety net hospitals regarding the nature and extent of quality improvement (QI) activities. We found that safety net hospitals generally engage in QI activities to the same degree, but that there are important differences among safety net subgroups. "High burden" hospitals (those with high uncompensated care relative to total expenses) have significantly lower QI activity and performance levels than non-safety net hospitals. Greater policy attention should be directed toward enabling these hospitals to improve both their QI activity levels and their performance.