VA San Diego Healthcare System Receives 5-Star CMS Quality Rating

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.

“At VA San Diego, we work day in and day out to provide excellent healthcare,” said Dr. Frank Pearson, CEO and Director for the VA San Diego Healthcare System. “We are pleased to see that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have validated our efforts.”

“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.”

For more information, please contact Scott Gomer at scott.gomer@va.gov or 858-552-4373, or visit http://www.va.gov/san-diego-health-care/.

Scott Gomer, Chief Communications Officer

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