Heart failure performance measures fail---again

Some time ago I blogged about the initial results of OPTIMIZE-HF which showed that at 60-90 day follow up the CMS core heart failure measures were found to be lacking in benefit. Now we have the results of the 1 year follow up. Again, no benefit:

Background: Recent efforts to improve care for patients hospitalized with heart failure have focused on process-based performance measures. Data supporting the link between current process measures and patient outcomes are sparse...

Conclusion: Hospital process performance for heart failure as judged by current CMS measures is not associated with patient outcomes within 1 year of discharge, calling into question whether existing CMS metrics can accurately discriminate hospital quality of care for heart failure.

I'll say it again: performance does not equal quality and by itself does not produce better outcomes.