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MassachusettsCardiovascular Disease Quality Measures Compared to Achievable Benchmarks

The NHQDR quality measures specific to Cardiovascular Disease are compared to achievable benchmarks, which are derived from the top-performing States. Better performance of a State can mean higher or lower values of a measure, depending on the desired outcome. For example, low values are desirable for measures such as infant mortality, whereas high values are desirable for measures such as preventative screening. The categories of achievement have been standardized across the measure definitions so that:

Far away from benchmark - a State's value for a measure has not achieved 50% of the benchmark.

Close to benchmark - a State's value for a measure is between 50% and 90% of a benchmark (i.e., worse than the benchmark but has achieved at least half of the benchmark but not as much as 90% of a benchmark).

Achieved benchmark or better - a State's value for a measure is no worse than 90% of the benchmark value, the measure has achieved the benchmark. This category also includes the case in which the measure’s value is equal to or better than the benchmark.

Measures That Achieved Benchmark or Better
Measure	Estimate	Benchmark	Distance to Benchmark
Stroke patients prescribed statin medication at hospital discharge	97.5	98.6	1.1%
Stroke patients who received venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis	96.8	98.7	2.0%
Stroke patients with educational material addressing activation of emergency medical system, follow-up after discharge, educations prescribed at discharge, risk factors for stroke, warning signs and symptoms of stroke	92.2	96.7	4.7%
Acute stroke patients for whom IV thrombolytic therapy was initiated at hospital within 3 hours of time last known well	86.0	92.9	7.4%

Measures With No Available Benchmark Information or Supplemental Measures
Measure	Estimate	Benchmark	Distance to Benchmark
Median time in minutes before outpatients with chest pain or possible heart attack who needed specialized care were transferred to another hospital and did not have contraindication to fibrinolytic	57.0
Median time in minutes outpatients with chest pain or possible heart attack who got drugs to break up blood clots after arrival	22.0
Median time in minutes outpatients with chest pain or possible heart attack from emergency department arrival to get ECG	7.0
Outpatients with chest pain or possible heart attack who received fibrinolytic therapy within 30 minutes of arrival	82.0
Patients who came to the emergency department (ED) with stroke symptoms and received head CT or MRI who received the interpretation of the results within 45 minutes of ED arrival	76.0

National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports

MassachusettsCardiovascular Disease Quality Measures Compared to Achievable Benchmarks

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