International comparisons of hospital performance: the Global Comparators Initiative

Project summary

Background

The Dr Foster Unit at Imperial makes several key contributions to the project which is facilitated by Dr Foster Intelligence. At the beginning, we advised on the data processing (e.g. determining what is an inpatient and defining the procedure groups) and ran the initial risk-adjustment models. More recently, we advised on the method for comorbidity adjustment and assessed the impact on the variation by country in mortality rates of different coding patterns and denominator inflation. We have also provided documentation around the methods used and have led the writing of two draft research papers to date. We are represented on the project’s Scientific and Research Committee. We will continue to work on indicators, risk-adjustment models and data presentation. More information on the work being carried out can be found on the Global Comparators website.

Aims

• The aim of the Initiative is to share data and expertise from different countries for mutual learning, research and quality improvement.

Outputs

• Rost NS, Bottle A, Lee JM, Randall M, Middleton S, Shaw L, Thijs V, Rinkel GJ, Hemmen TM; Global Comparators Stroke GOAL collaborators. Stroke Severity Is a Crucial Predictor of Outcome: An International Prospective Validation Study. J Am Heart Assoc 2016;5(1):e002433. PubMed
• Ruiz M, Bottle A, Aylin P. The Global Comparators Project: International comparison of 30-day In-hospital mortality by day of the week. BMJ Qual Safety 2015;24:492-504. PubMed
• Bottle A, Middleton S, Kalkman CJ, Livingston EH, Aylin P. Global Comparators Project: International Comparison of Hospital Outcomes Using Administrative Data. Health Serv Res 2013;48(6 Pt 1):2081-100. PubMed