Published as part of CHCF's California Health Care Almanac, this report provides quality of care data for California hospitals, nursing homes, home health, and end-of-life care. The report reveals strong statewide performance on hospital process-of-care measures and home health measures. California continues to struggle with some aspects of nursing home and end-of-life care.

Key findings include:

• In 2011, California hospitals achieved 90% or better compliance with the recommended processes of care for 30 of 32 measures tracked by the Department of Health and Human Services.
• In California and the nation, 16% of Medicare inpatients treated for medical conditions were readmitted within 30 days of discharge.
• Although California nursing homes performed the same or better than the national average on more than 80% of quality measures, they continued to rely on physically restraining residents more than the nation as a whole.
• Compared to the nation, California's home health agencies performed especially well on patient outcomes (such as the number of patients discharged to the community) and prevention measures (such as pressure ulcer prevention).
• Although 70% of Californians indicate that they would prefer to die at home, only 32% of deaths in 2009 occurred at home.

A companion report, A Mixed Bag: Clinical Quality in California, provides quality of care data by clinical area and patient condition, and is available through Related CHCF Pages below.

The complete report, as well as the 2011 edition, is available under Document Downloads.