Research Summary
Dr. Austin’s research broadly focuses on performance measurement in health care. His research has included the development of a composite score for patient safety in hospitals, analyzing the level of agreement and disagreement across multiple national hospital rating systems, researching how performance measures can be used to drive and sustain internal quality improvements within health care organizations, and how an oversight model could strengthen current quality and safety reporting efforts. Dr. Austin’s current research interests include understanding the role of transparency of quality and safety data in driving improvements in care delivery, measuring disparities in the quality of care, and measuring the diagnostic performance of hospitals.
His work has been funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, The Commonwealth Fund, AARP, The Leapfrog Group, and the Cautious Patient Foundation.
Dr. Austin has published in a variety of journals including Health Affairs, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Health Services Research, Academic Medicine, BMJ Quality and Safety, The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, and American Journal of Medical Quality.
Selected Publications
Austin JM, D'Andrea G, Birkmeyer JD, Leape LL, Milstein A, Pronovost PJ, Romano PS, Singer SJ, Vogus TJ, Wachter RM. “Safety in numbers: the development of Leapfrog's composite patient safety score for U.S. hospitals.” J Patient Saf. 2014 Mar;10(1):64-71. doi: 10.1097/PTS.0b013e3182952644.
Austin JM, Jha AK, Romano PS, Singer SJ, Vogus TJ, Wachter RM, Pronovost PJ. National Hospital Ratings Systems Share Few Common Scores And May Generate Confusion Instead Of Clarity. Health Aff (Millwood). 2015;34(3):423-30.
Austin JM, McGlynn EA, Pronovost PJ. Fostering Transparency in Outcomes, Quality, Safety, and Costs. JAMA. 2016;316(16):1661-1662.
Austin JM, Kachalia A. The state of health care quality measurement in the era of COVID-19: the importance of doing better. JAMA. 2020 Jul;324(4):333-334.
Nerenz DR, Austin JM, Deutscher D, Maddox KEJ, Nuccio EJ, Teigland C, Weinhandl E, Glance LG. Adjusting Quality Measures For Social Risk Factors Can Promote Equity In Health Care. Health Aff (Millwood). 2021 Apr;40(4):637-644.
Patient Ratings & Comments
The Patient Rating score is an average of all responses to physician related questions on the national CG-CAHPS Medical Practice patient experience survey through Press Ganey. Responses are measured on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best score. Comments are also gathered from our CG-CAHPS Medical Practice Survey through Press Ganey and displayed in their entirety. Patients are de-identified for confidentiality and patient privacy.