New State-by-State Scorecard Examines Health System Performance

Best, worst, most and least improved among areas of health system performance assessment

The Commonwealth Fund recently released their 2019 on State Health System Performance, ranking the states in 47 different categories.

Hawaii received top honors from a system that measures access to health care, quality of care, service use and costs of care, health outcomes, and income-based health care disparities.

The Scorecard finds that many states are losing pivotal ground on issues key to life expectancy. For example, suicides due to alcohol, depression and drug use continue to escalate. Access to health care has been a mixed bag for the past several years depending on the particular state, while healthcare costs are a nationwide issue that only grew in the past 12 months. 

Massachusetts, Minnesota, Washington, and Connecticut rounded out the top five states. Rhode Island received the honor of “most-improved state.” You can view the full report here.