Simulating the overall hospital quality Star ratings with random measure weights

Simulating the overall hospital quality Star ratings with random measure weights
JAMA Network Open; by Benjamin D. Pollock, Daniel S. Ubl, Subashnie Devkaran, Sean C. Dowdy; 7/25
We found that only 244 US hospitals achieved reliable excellence in hospital quality in 2024 when defined as 90th percentile performance or better in at least 50.0% of 100,000 simulations using random weights for each measure in the CMS Overall Star Ratings. Our analysis highlights that there is meaningful variation in hospital quality performance across the spectrum of quality measures, even among 5-star hospitals. Future efforts to assess this variation may allow for better identification of reliably excellent hospitals, which could in turn lead to solicitation of evidence regarding the processes or cultures that separate reliable excellence from inconsistent greatness in hospital quality.