2015 health system scorecard finds more states improved than worsened
The 2015 Commonwealth Fund Scorecard on State Health System Performance tracked the capacity and operation measures of health care systems across all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, in an effort to help industry leaders and policymakers recognize lapses, seize opportunities and set goals, according to the Commonwealth Fund's most recent report. This is the fourth edition of the report, with previous ones having been published in 2007, 2009 and 2014. While large discrepancies and gaps in health care continue to exist among states, this year's report also revealed several new findings.
The scorecard
States are scored and ranked on 42 indicators grouped into five different dimensions, according to Healthcare IT News. These five elements include healthy lives, equity, avoidable hospital use and cost, prevention and treatment and affordability. From there, independent indicators measured breast and colorectal cancer deaths, the number of uninsured adults and children, hospital admissions for children with asthma and many other factors. Improvements in avoidable hospital use and cost are due in part to the federal government's 2012 decision to penalize hospitals financially for high readmission rates. Overall, more states improved than worsened on most of these indicators, noted the health care news source.
State leaders
The seven leading performers among states were Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Minnesota and New Hampshire, according to the report. These states were also leaders in previous scorecards. Coming in as the lowest-ranked states were Oklahoma, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana. However, it's important to note that a number of these low-ranking states were also among those that improved on the greatest number of indicators. For example, Louisiana improved on 16 indicators and only worsened on three. On the flip side, Hawaii only improved on six indicators and worsened on four indicators.
A first for the 2015 report
Mirroring the results of the past three years, the latest report found large gaps across states continue to exist in three specific areas – the quality of care received, access to health care when needed and a person's likelihood of living a healthy and long life. In fact, there was as much as an eight fold difference in these areas between states ranked in the bottom quartile and those states ranked in the top quartile, according to Healthcare Finance. Also notable was that the 2015 scorecard was the first to measure the 2014 coverage expansions of the Affordable Care Act. According to the report, there has been broad-based improvement, yet the full changes and results of the act will take several years to surface.
