Selecting Peers

Peer analyses require you to answer a Peer prompt where you select peer facilities for the purpose of comparing your facility's performance to that of a peer group.

The Five-Facility Rule

A peer group must contain at least five facilities in order for you to view peer data. Depending on data submissions, not every category will contain five facilities.

If you do not drill down to the facility level, you may not realize that the mandatory five facilities do not exist in the category that you selected until your analysis returns without any peer data.

If you receive a report that doesn't contain peer data, check the categories that you selected. It may be necessary to select more than one category to satisfy the five-facility rule.

Tips for Selecting the Peer

The following tips may be useful in selecting the Peer:

• When selecting a peer category (Top Quartile LOS, for example), drilldown to the facility level to ensure the category contains the required five facilities before you run the analysis.
• If the category you want does not contain five facilities, supplement your selection by choosing an additional category. You may also select individual facilities within a category, for example, two facilities from one category and three from another.

Peer Data on Reports

If the five-facility rule has not been satisfied, data will not show up in the Peer columns of the analysis. Even if the five-facility rule has been satisfied, it is possible that some cells in the Peer columns will have data and some cells will be blank. This can happen when the Peer did not contain data from at least five facilities for the attribute on that specific row. For the cells where there is Peer data, that means that the Peer did contain data from at least five facilities for the attribute on that row.

Facility Count for the Peer Metric

The Facility Count for Peer displays the number of facilities included in the Peer metrics for each row.

Depending on the row, the Facility Count for Peer metric displays the following values:

Value	This value means that …
Null (the cell is blank)	No facilities are in the Peer for the attribute on the row. These rows will display values for the Facility metrics but the Peer values will remain blank.
<5	1-4 facilities are in the Peer for the attribute on the row. Because at least five facilities are required to calculate Peer metrics, these rows will display values for the Facility metrics but the Peer values will remain blank.
Number above 5	This exact number of facilities is in the Peer for the attribute on the row. These rows will display values for both Facility and Peer metrics.