For years, the government has collected a rich store of data about the performance of individual dialysis facilities. But it has kept nearly all the information secret from those it might benefit most: Patients.
Now ProPublica has obtained this data under the Freedom of Information Act. We are making a comprehensive set of clinic records publicly available for the first time on our website.
Patients and others can search for a clinic and see how it compares on 15 key measures, ranging from mortality and hospitalization to transplant rates and infection control. Also on the site are historical reports dating to 2002.
Release of the data is long overdue, patient advocates say.
"It gives you a snapshot of what a clinic is about," said Roberta Wager, a past president of the American Association of Kidney Patients who works as a nurse and patient educator at several dialysis clinics in Texas. "This is your life. Wouldn't you want to have everything in your favor?"
There are almost 400,000 Americans who depend on chronic dialysis to do what their failed kidneys cannot, a number that has grown swiftly over the past two decades, spurred by epidemics of obesity and diabetes.
More than 5,000 facilities have sprung up to provide them with care, stretching into the nation's most rural areas and competing for patients in urban and suburban areas.
Patients today have more choice than ever. Yet most pick centers based on convenience, or on what their doctors suggest, with little notion that even clinics within the same communities can have substantial disparities.
In more than 200 counties nationwide, the data show, the gap between facilities with the best and worst patient survival, adjusted for case-mix differences, is greater than 50 percent. In areas such as Allegheny County, Pa., or Franklin County, Ohio, each with upwards of two dozen clinics, the differences are even more substantial, exceeding 200 percent.
There is also wide variability in how often patients at different clinics are hospitalized for septicemia. Although septicemia cases can be unrelated to dialysis, it is a significant risk for patients, who typically have their blood cleaned of toxins three times a week. Nationally, the rate was about 12 percent a year for 2006 to 2008. But in dozens of counties, the spread between facilities with the highest and lowest rates was more than 25 percentage points.
Read entire article here
Now ProPublica has obtained this data under the Freedom of Information Act. We are making a comprehensive set of clinic records publicly available for the first time on our website.
Patients and others can search for a clinic and see how it compares on 15 key measures, ranging from mortality and hospitalization to transplant rates and infection control. Also on the site are historical reports dating to 2002.
Release of the data is long overdue, patient advocates say.
"It gives you a snapshot of what a clinic is about," said Roberta Wager, a past president of the American Association of Kidney Patients who works as a nurse and patient educator at several dialysis clinics in Texas. "This is your life. Wouldn't you want to have everything in your favor?"
There are almost 400,000 Americans who depend on chronic dialysis to do what their failed kidneys cannot, a number that has grown swiftly over the past two decades, spurred by epidemics of obesity and diabetes.
More than 5,000 facilities have sprung up to provide them with care, stretching into the nation's most rural areas and competing for patients in urban and suburban areas.
Patients today have more choice than ever. Yet most pick centers based on convenience, or on what their doctors suggest, with little notion that even clinics within the same communities can have substantial disparities.
In more than 200 counties nationwide, the data show, the gap between facilities with the best and worst patient survival, adjusted for case-mix differences, is greater than 50 percent. In areas such as Allegheny County, Pa., or Franklin County, Ohio, each with upwards of two dozen clinics, the differences are even more substantial, exceeding 200 percent.
There is also wide variability in how often patients at different clinics are hospitalized for septicemia. Although septicemia cases can be unrelated to dialysis, it is a significant risk for patients, who typically have their blood cleaned of toxins three times a week. Nationally, the rate was about 12 percent a year for 2006 to 2008. But in dozens of counties, the spread between facilities with the highest and lowest rates was more than 25 percentage points.
Read entire article here
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