top 10 Commonwealth Fund Top 10 for overall health systemperformance: 1. St. Paul, Minn. 2. Dubuque 3. Rochester, Minn. 4.Minneapolis 5. Appleton, Wis. 6. Santa Rosa, Calif. 7. La Crosse,Wis. 8. St. Cloud, Minn. 9. Manchester, N.H. 10. San Mateo County,Calif. Monroe, La., finished 306th, last among the evaluatedcommunities.
Who needs a Mayo Clinic?
The Commonwealth Fund ranked Dubuque second in the nation foroverall health system performance just behind St. Paul, Minn., andjust ahead of Rochester, Minn., home of the Mayo Clinic.
'It's wonderful news,' said Patrice Lambert, director of theDubuque County Health Department. 'It really does validate a lot ofwork that has been done and is currently being done.'
'Rising to the Challenge: Results from a Scorecard on LocalHealth Performance, 2012' was released Wednesday by the CommonwealthFund, a foundation that dates to 1918 and is devoted to improvingthe health care system.
The report marks the first time the Commonwealth Fund hasevaluated and ranked health-system performance on a local level. Ittracks 43 indicators spanning four dimensions of health systemperformance - access, prevention and treatment, costs andpotentially avoidable hospital use and health outcomes.
'We're definitely lucky in Dubuque, and what we enjoy doesn'texist everywhere else,' said John Tallent, CEO of Medical AssociatesClinic and Health Plans. 'This is really positive news for thebusiness community and the community in general.'
Report authors noted that the 30 top-performing local areasinclude communities in the Northeast, Midwest, and a few West Coastcommunities - with these leading areas often doing well on multipleindicators and dimensions of care. Yet while pockets of excellenceexist, there are ample opportunities for health system improvementin all communities, even among the leaders.
'Access is a big thing,' Tallent said of Dubuque's strengths.'There's also a focus on coordination of care and efficiency.'
Dubuque earned high marks for the high percentage of hospitalizedpatients who are informed about what to do during their recovery athome and the area's low percentage of live births with low birthweight.
Other indicators used to rank areas included access to care,screening rates, percentage of patients who receive the recommendedcare, mortality rates, costs per Medicare enrollee and more.
Lambert credited a collaborative approach to health care that hasresulted in initiatives such as the creation of the CrescentCommunity Health Center as well as Harkin Wellness Grants that builtgreenhouses for community gardens and provided other avenues tohealthier living.
'We have got a very good collaborative working relation inDubuque County with our hospitals, with the Visiting NurseAssociation, with our schools, with our dental providers and withCrescent,' she said. 'We're all focusing on the same healthy goals.'
