VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System’s Omaha VA Medical Center Receives 5-Star CMS Quality Ratings
PRESS RELEASE
July 28, 2023
Omaha , NE — VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System’s Omaha VA Medical Center announced today that it has received a 5-star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This is the first time CMS has included VA facilities in their annual Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings.
The CMS uses 5 categories – mortality, safety of care, readmission, patient experience, and timely and effective care – to award a quality rating for each hospital. The more stars (out of 5), the better a hospital performed on the available quality measures.
Overall, 67% of VA hospitals included in the CMS annual Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings received either 4 or 5 stars, compared to only 41% of non-VA hospitals. These findings are the latest in a series of recent evaluations showing the effectiveness of VA health care compared to non-VA health care. VA hospitals outperformed non-VA hospitals on all 10 core patient satisfaction metrics in the recent Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Star Ratings, and a recent systematic review of more than 40 peer-reviewed studies found that VA health care is consistently as good as — or better than — non-VA health care.
“We are honored and humbled to receive this rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,” said Dr. Eileen Kingston, director of VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System. “Each of our area Veterans deserves the best care that we can provide, and our VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System staff members have worked extremely hard to do exactly that. This rating recognizes the ongoing work that we are doing in the areas of timely and effective care, patient experience, readmission, safety of care, and mortality. At the same time, we are also very aware that a rating like this does not come easily. We must continue to work hard each and every day to meet the current and future needs of our Veterans, who have earned and deserve the best possible care that we can provide them.”
“Our job at VA is to deliver the best possible care to every Veteran who walks through our doors,” said VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal. “While we’re very proud of these findings, there is still work to do. We will study these results, learn from them, and continue to improve until we’re delivering world-class care to every Veteran, every time.”