This is a composite average of a selected 15 measures (out of 149 tested) in five basic performance areas: overall health care quality, types of care (preventive, acute, and chronic), settings of care (hospitals, ambulatory care, nursing home, and home health), five clinical conditions, and clinical preventive services. Some areas we score well above average, others, not so much.
In the 2007 State Snapshot report, Michigan scored below average on nursing home care, flu vaccines for high-risk people, avoidable heart failure and diabetes hospitalizations, and asthma admissions for adults.
However, Michigan scored above average on recommended heart failure care in hospitals, diagnosing colorectal cancer and for low numbers of angioplasty and heart attack deaths in hospitals, the report said.
“We are pleased with the report and it demonstrates that Michigan is performing well as compared with other states,” said David Seaman, executive vice president of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association in Lansing. “We have seen Michigan hospitals take a much more focused proactive strategy” in improving process of care measures.
You can see the breakdown on Michigan specifics here. For example, we are very strong on heart disease clinical care, but not so good with diabetes, so forth and so on.
While we have areas we need to improve, overall we rank near the top in the nation - and certainly higher than a couple of our near neighbors.
Overall, Michigan received a score of 61.47 and ranked near the top two states of Minnesota at 66.96 and Wisconsin at 66.04. The report did not rank the states beyond the top five that also included North Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska.
By comparison, Ohio scored 40.98 and Indiana scored 40.82. Ranking last was Mississippi at 29.63. A higher score indicates higher overall quality.
So, all you companies being sweet-talked by Indiana can stop and think about that one.
The complete study is available here.