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Abstract:
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"Statistical Issues in Assessing Hospital Performance" was commissioned by the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies at the request of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. I was one of six Committee statisticians that produced this "White Paper." The contract was signed and we first met in mid-June 2011, with a charge to "provide guidance on statistical approaches . when estimating performance metrics . [and] consider and discuss concerns commonly raised by stakeholders (hospitals, consumer, and insurers) about the use of hierarchical generalized linear models in profiling hospital quality." Under intense time pressure, we delivered a report in November that was revised and finalized for release in January 2012. I will discuss several issues raised by this first-of-its-kind COPSS endeavor, with the goal of identifying both practical and technical lessons for the continuing effort to bring statistical wisdom to bear on this particular problem (how to compare hospitals) and on important policy matters more generally.
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