San Francisco VA Medical Center receives a 4 Star CMS quality rating

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.

“This rating is a testament to the clinical excellence of the health care workers of the San Francisco VA Medical Center,” said Jia Li, San Francisco VA Health Care System Director. While we are pleased to have received 4 out 5 stars, we remain committed to continuous quality improvement and for each Veteran to receive the best care possible at our health care system.” 

“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 email V21SFCPublicAffairs@va.gov, call San Francisco VA Health Care System Public Affairs Office at 415-750-2012, or visit https://www.va.gov/san-francisco-health-care