Quality & Service

Quality and safety are the number one priority for UCLA Health System.  In keeping with this priority, UCLA Health System joins with leading hospitals, physician groups, employers, health insurance associations and others to focus on monitoring and improving healthcare quality and efficiency in the United States.  These organizations have established national, evidence-based measures to evaluate, standardize and compare the performance of hospitals, physicians and other providers.  UCLA Health System proudly collaborates with these organizations because we believe patients should make informed decisions about the physicians and hospitals they trust to provide care, and we believe open reporting, or "transparency", provides patients with greater access to the information needed to make these informed choices.

To that end, UCLA Health System provides convenient access to our quality performance reports on our web site.  These measures reflect patient satisfaction with the quality of care provided by UCLA Health System, how often we comply with providing evidenced-based patient safety and process improvement initiatives for conditions such as heart attack, stroke or pneumonia, and the average patient survival rates, by condition and procedure, experienced by patients receiving medical and surgical care in our facilities.  (Specific reports are available for Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital and UCLA Medical Group.  To view, click on a hospital or medical group listed above or click on “Quality Performance Reports” on the left-hand navigation bar.)

In addition to reporting the performance results of UCLA Health System on patient satisfaction and key clinical quality indicators, we also share information regarding our accreditations, our collaboration with other national and international organizations involved in continuous healthcare quality improvement, and our most recent awards and achievements.  Our web site also offers important educational information about how to search for and evaluate reports about the quality of care provided by hospitals, physicians and others, with specific references and links to some of the nation’s leading organizations involved in the public reporting of healthcare quality data.

UCLA Health System consistently receives high marks from many organizations that publicly report healthcare quality.  We believe these ratings and rankings highlight the outstanding skills of our world-renowned physicians, our use of advanced technologies to help diagnose and treat a myriad of conditions and diseases, and our ability to quickly translate cutting-edge research into bedside practice.  We consistently take steps to ensure we have the ability to rapidly respond to life-threatening conditions, avoid medical mistakes and facilitate seamless transitions between each patient’s primary care physician and specialists.  In addition, we internally audit and adjust systems in place, always asking ourselves the fundamental question:  Are we doing what is best for our patients?

It is the individual patient experience that matters above all.  Each year, UCLA Health System physicians and staff are responsible for more than one million outpatient visits, 80,000 hospitalizations and countless interactions with community physicians, with whom we collaborate to ensure a seamless continuum of quality care.  We have received many awards and accolades for our ability to provide a comprehensive range of routine and complex primary and specialty care.  In fact, we serve as the major center in greater Los Angeles for treating complex patient care referrals.  But our most important accomplishment is the individual care we provide to each of our patients every day.  Our senior administrators routinely visit UCLA Health System patients and their families to ask about their experiences while in our care and to take steps to improve and learn from those experiences when necessary.  Spending time with patients and their families reminds us of why we are here, and reconnects us with greater purpose to our mission.

We encourage you to take a moment to review the information provided on our web site regarding the quality of care you can expect to receive as a patient of UCLA Health System.  We believe that after reviewing the information, you will understand why we are considered the Best in the West.

About Quality Data on the Internet

Today, a number of different agencies report information about hospital quality on the internet. These websites can be a good source of information for healthcare consumers and many of them provide reliable data that can help consumers make informed. 

How current is the information?
Data reported on the Internet is typically historical data.  It can be years old or months old.  If the data is not recent, it may not accurately reflect the care being provided today.

What data is included?
Internet healthcare quality measures are usually of two types - process or outcome data. Process measures show how well an organization is following certain evidence-based care practices that can lead to better patient results - for example, the percent of heart attack patients who receive aspirin upon arrival in the emergency department (ED).  Outcome information demonstrates the actual results of care (i.e., the rate of complications following heart surgery), and should be properly risk-adjusted (the degree of patient sickness taken into account) when comparing different hospitals in order to get an "apples to apples" evaluation.

Who is reporting the data?
There are many reputable reporting agencies, including government agencies, healthcare data organizations, and hospital associations. Consumers should always check the credentials of any group reporting healthcare quality data.