Federal Ratings
The annual Dialysis Facility Reports from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services list quality results center by center and compare them to the nation. Northwest Kidney Centers summarizes the collective performance of our 14 dialysis facilities for an overview of our whole organization's quality, factoring in patients' age and complicating conditions.View the reports for each of our 14 dialysis centers >
Report highlights:
- Longer lives. Northwest Kidney Centers' four-year annual patient mortality for 2007-2010 improved to 18.5 percent (from 18.9 percent) compared to the national average of 19.7 percent. Our adjusted mortality rate is 9 percent better than the national average.
- New patients do better. First-year patient mortality in 2007-2009 was 25.4 percent, compared to the national average of 26.7 percent. Our adjusted mortality rate for first-year dialysis patients, who often are very vulnerable, is 7 percent better than the nation.
- More transplants. We support kidney transplantation as the preferred form of treatment for many patients. Our transplant rate is 75 percent higher than the national average. Still, only 9 percent of our eligible patients were transplanted. Of the 74 kidney transplants in our patients in 2010, 31 percent were from a living donor and 69 percent were from a deceased donor.
- Fewer hospitalizations, readmissions and trips to the ER. Hospital care should be utilized in the most cost-effective manner; we strive to avoid unnecessary admissions. Our patients have 12 percent fewer hospital admissions than the national average. They spent an average of 10 days a year in the hospital, compared to 15 days nationwide. Of all our patients' hospital admissions, 29 percent were followed by readmission within 30 days, compared to 31 percent nationally. Our patients had 8 percent fewer emergency department visits than the nation.
- Effective, safe blood access. The "gold standard" for hemodialysis access is a fistula. In 2010, 74 percent of our hemodialysis patients have a fistula in place or in use, compared to 64 percent nationwide. Another common means of blood access, the hemodialysis catheter, is dangerous. Our top quality goal is to eliminate these catheters. In 2010, 19 percent of our patients had a catheter, compared to 24 percent nationwide.
- Good preparation for dialysis. In the 2010 report period, 59 percent of new patients had been under a nephrologist's care for six months or longer, compared to 44 percent nationally. Among our new patients, 51 percent had a fistula in place or in use, compared to 35 percent nationwide.
- Protection from dangerous infections. During the 2009-2010 flu season, 87 percent of our patients (up from 79 percent prior year) were vaccinated, compared to 70 percent nationally.
We are the only dialysis provider in the nation to proactively post the full reports publicly on our own website, at www.nwkidney.org/quality. We do this in the interest of transparency because we are a nonprofit organization accountable to the community.
All reports
2011 Performance Reports
2010 Performance Reports
2009 Performance Reports