Utah Receives "Strong" Rating In New Health Care Study

None by Eric Ray

(KCPW News) Utah is one of only eight states receiving a "strong" rating for quality of health care according to a new report. The Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality says the state shows a stable performance in areas of quality, patient safety, access and cost.

"I'm very pleased with our movement upward in long term care and nursing home care. We got kind of dinged last year for not doing a very good job with pain managment of elderly folks in nursing facilities. And we're very strong in home health care, among the strongest in the nation so that's good news," says Utah Department of Health Executive Director Dr. David Sundwall.

Despite the strong rating, Sundwall says the study shows areas where Utah needs drastic improvement. For example, the state's number of uninsured people grew nearly one and half percent from 2005 to 2006. Utah also did poorly in the areas of promotion of preventive services for certain types of cancer and especially poor in screening for sexually transmitted diseases.

"Our doctors, the regular private practice physicians, need to have what we call a high index of suspicion and at least offer screening to everybody," says Sundwall. "We don't mean to imply that everyone is sexually active, but we need to give them that opportunity to choose and let them understand the benefits of proper treatment."

The report also says Utah had a decline in satisfaction of care for children with chronic conditions and the state's growth rates in health care expenditures were higher than the national average.

Email to a friendPosted in KCPW Newsroom. Copyright 2008 KCPW