Hospital-specific Template Matching for Benchmarking Performance in a Diverse Multihospital System.

Background: Hospital-specific template matching is a newer method of hospital performance measurement that may be fairer than regression-based benchmarking. However, it has been tested in only limited research settings.

Objective: The objective of this study was to test the feasibility of hospital-specific template matching assessments in the Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system and determine power to detect greater-than-expected 30-day mortality.

Temporal Trends and Hospital Variation in Time-to-Antibiotics Among Veterans Hospitalized With Sepsis.

Importance: It is unclear whether antimicrobial timing for sepsis has changed outside of performance incentive initiatives.

Objective: To examine temporal trends and variation in time-to-antibiotics for sepsis in the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This observational cohort study included 130 VA hospitals from 2013 to 2018.

Measurement of Sepsis in a National Cohort Using Three Different Methods to Define Baseline Organ Function.

In 2017, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed a new surveillance definition of sepsis, the adult sepsis event (ASE), to better track sepsis epidemiology.

Developing a template matching algorithm for benchmarking hospital performance in a diverse, integrated healthcare system.

Template matching is a proposed approach for hospital benchmarking, which measures performance based on matching a subset of comparable patient hospitalizations from each hospital. We assessed the ability to create the required matched samples and thus the feasibility of template matching to benchmark hospital performance in a diverse healthcare system.Nationwide Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals, 2017.

Late Vasopressor Administration in Patients in the ICU: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Background: Little is known about the prevalence, predictors, and outcomes of late vasopressor administration which evolves after admission to the ICU.

Research Question: What is the epidemiology of late vasopressor administration in the ICU?

Study Design And Methods: We retrospectively studied a cohort of veterans admitted to the Veterans Administration ICUs for ≥ 4 days from 2014 to 2017. The timing of vasopressor administration was categorized as early (only within the initial 3 days), late (on day 4 or later and none on day 3), and continuous (within the initial 2 days through at least day 4).

Template matching for benchmarking hospital performance in the veterans affairs healthcare system.

Comparing hospital performance in a health system is traditionally done with multilevel regression models that adjust for differences in hospitals' patient case-mix. In contrast, "template matching" compares outcomes of similar patients at different hospitals but has been used only in limited patient settings.Our objective was to test a basic template matching approach in the nationwide Veterans Affairs healthcare system (VA), compared with a more standard regression approach.