People looking for data about how healthcare providers perform based in part on how patients rate them soon will have a source for such information.

Raleigh-based Axial Exchange is expanding its “Patient Engagement Index,” or PEI, nationwide in partnership with Becker’s Hospital Review.

The first “National Patient Engagement Index” will be published in May.

Axial’s ratings index, which assigns hospitals “scores” up to 100 is uniuqe in that it utilizes patient feedback as well as other information such as readmission rates.

“Our regional PEI has been very successful in showing the variability of patient engagement across the industry,” said Joanne Rohde,  Axial Exchange’s chief executive officer. “We’re excited to partner with Becker’s Hospital Review to strengthen our research methodology and build out the scope of the PEI on a national level. The national PEI will highlight the increasing importance of patient engagement as provider organizations are seeing how more active patient engagement leads to improve clinical outcomes, lower readmission rates and reduce costs.”

Exclusive WRALTechWire video interview with Joanne Rhode:

  • Axial Exchange CEO Joanne Rhode talks with WRALTechWire Editor Rick Smith about the Patient Engagement Index.

The PEI evaluates hospitals based on publicly available data. Axial launched the index in 2013, focusing on a number of states.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Axials rated North Carolina hospitals last year with Rex Hospital topping the list.

 “Patient engagement is increasingly at the center of healthcare reform, and achieving excellence in clinical outcomes has been proven dependent upon enhanced patient involvement,” said Lindsey Dunn, editor in chief of Becker’s Hospital Review. “Partnering with Axial Exchange — the first organization to develop a metric for evaluating patient engagement efforts and programs — to expand their regional PEI on a national level was a natural choice. We are proud to work with Axial Exchange to extend this industry-first benchmark for assessing hospitals’ efforts to engage patients in their care.”

Rankings are based on:

  • Efforts to engage patients and promote personal health management through various web-based tools
  • Readmission rates
  • Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, a standardized instrument for measuring patient satisfaction

Axial was founded by Rohde, a former Red Hat executive in 2009. Its primary mission is to develop software and solutions related to healthcare. One of its services, which tracks how patient data is shared among health care providers, won the health IT innovation challenge put on by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (or ONC), a part of the Department of Health and Human Services, in 2011.

Axial conducts the PEI as a public service.

The top 100 hospitals based on the PEI will be announced at Becker’s Hospital Review annual meeting on May 15-17 in Chicago.

The index will be titled: “100 Top Hospitals for Patient Engagement – powered by the Becker’s-Axial Patient Engagement Index.”

Becker’s Hospital Review is published monthly.