Five Years of Quality

This report highlights five years of quality improvement among Florida hospitals. It highlights 'Florida Firsts,' a list of quality initiatives first implemented in Florida.

• First to publicly report readmission rates by hospital.
• First to launch a statewide initiative to reduce the number of patients readmitted to a hospital within 15 days of discharge using an approach that looked at readmissions that were not planned or expected, or unrelated to the patient's original procedure.
• Largest statewide initiative focused on reducing complications of surgery. The Florida Surgical Care Initiative has become a national model for quality improvement.

In the past five years, Florida hospitals have seen:

• 15 percent fewer readmissions
• 14.5 percent fewer surgical complications
• 41 percent fewer blood stream infections
• 37 percent fewer urinary tract infections