The Flex Monitoring Team, the nation’s leading experts on rural health care quality, has prepared a detailed analysis of last week’s JAMA report on quality of care at critical access hospitals (CAH) which concluded that compared with non-Critical Access Hospitals (CAH), CAH’s had fewer clinical capabilities, worse measured process of care, and higher mortality rates for patients with AMI, CHF or Pneumonia. “The report is simply deficient when it comes to understanding the basic role of a Critical Access Hospital within a rural community,” said Alan Morgan, National Rural Health Association CEO. “The current quality measurement systems available do not adequately reflect the core work of what rural hospitals do on a daily basis.”

Funded by HRSA, the Flex Team has provided detailed national and state reports on CAH quality for the past six years. Their numerous reports document the substantial progress in quality improvement that CAHs have made during that time frame, as well as areas in which there is still room for improvement. Click here to view the Flex Team’s response to the JAMA report.

CRHC has been working with the 29 CAHs in Colorado for over 10 years on quality improvement activities including the Quality Network, 100,000 Lives Campaign, 5 Million Lives Campaign, Quality Health Indicators (QHi) Benchmarking, and iCARE (Improving Communication & Readmission). For more information on CRHC’s CAH quality improvement programs, contact Jen Dunn, CAH Program Manager at jd@coruralhealth.org.