California Hospital Inpatient Mortality Rates and Quality Ratings 2012-2023

2012 to 2023 data contains risk-adjusted mortality rates, quality ratings, and counts of deaths and cases for 6 medical conditions and 3 procedures across California hospitals. The dataset is produced by the State of California using AHRQ software, with methodology changes across versions affecting temporal comparability. It excludes outpatient procedures and conditions.

Use Cases

• Compare risk-adjusted mortality rates for specific conditions like Acute Stroke or Heart Failure across California hospitals for a given year.
• Analyze the relationship between the number of cases and the number of deaths for procedures like Pancreatic Resection to identify volume-outcome associations.
• Segment hospitals into performance tiers (e.g., 'better' or 'worse') based on published quality ratings for conditions like Pneumonia or Hip Fracture.
• Assess the impact of AHRQ software version changes on reported mortality rates for Acute Myocardial Infarction or Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage.

Strengths

• Covers 9 specific medical conditions and procedures over a 12-year period from 2012 to 2023.
• Provides risk-adjusted metrics, which are more meaningful for cross-hospital comparison than raw counts.
• Data is officially published and maintained by the State of California's Department of Health Care Access and Information.

Limitations

• Trend analysis over time is not recommended due to changes in AHRQ software versions and statistical methods across years.
• The dataset is limited to inpatient settings and excludes conditions treated or procedures performed in outpatient settings.
• Specific sample sizes (rows) and granular column details are not provided in the input.

Provenance

Source

State of California, Department of Health Care Access and Information

Collection Method

Generated using AHRQ Quality Indicators software (versions 4.5 to 2024) from hospital administrative data.

Time Range

2012 to 2023

Freshness

Updated as of November 2025.

Geography

California, USA