Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 18, § 9405b - Hospital community reports

Hospital community reports

The Commissioner of the Department of Financial Regulation with other health care stakeholders must establish a standard format for hospital community reports, which must include:

• Quality measures, including valid and reliable process and outcome measures, and comparisons to national quality benchmarks;
• Valid and reliable measures of patient safety;
• Valid and reliable measures of hospital-acquired infections;
• Measures of the hospital’s financial health, including comparisons to appropriate national benchmarks for fiscal health;
•  Summary of the hospital’s budget, including revenue by source and cost shifting;
• Valid, reliable and useful measures for comparison of charges for higher volume health care services;
• Hospital’s process for achieving openness and public participation in its strategic planning and decision-making;
• Hospital’s consumer complaint resolution process;
• Information on recently completed or ongoing quality improvement and patient safety projects;
• Description of strategic initiatives, one year and four year capital expenditure plans, and depreciation schedule;
• Information on the membership and governing body;
• Valid and reliable information on nurse staffing, including comparisons to industry benchmarks for safety.

Each January, each hospital’s governing body must publish a community report on its website, making paper copies available as needed.  The community report must be in a uniform format, as prescribed by law.  Hospitals outside of the state that serve a significant number of Vermont residents must be invited to participate in the community report process as well.   The community reports must also be provided to the Commissioner, who must make the reports available on a public website and include a format for comparing hospitals within the same categories of quality and financial indicators.