Slide Presentation from the AHRQ 2007 Annual Conference

Outcome Measurements
AHRQ Patient Safety Indicators

• Four patient safety indicators (PSI-5, PSI-6, PSI-7 and PSI-15) are selected as the main measures for patient safety performance in Iowa rural hospitals.
• A composite patient safety indicator variable is the weighted average of each indicator
  • The weights are based on the frequency of the numerator of each PSI in our sample (8-year inpatient discharges among 89 Iowa rural hospitals).
• Binary PSIs
  • If the value of a PSI is higher than the median of the PSI in our sample, the binary variable for the PSI (poor performance) is equal to one; otherwise, it is equal to zero