“Best Hospitals” Are Not Necessarily the Best
The study, published in the Archives of Surgery, looked at Internet-based HealthGrades and U.S. News & World Report, both of whose ratings it said are used by millions. It showed that for three types of cancer surgery,” America’s 50 Best Hospitals” as ranked by HealthGrades are no better than other hospitals once the number of patients they treat are taken into account.
See Reuters article and study abstract. H/T to Michael Ramlet.
Disappointing news. But hardly surprising.
Tom, it may not be surprising to you. But this is a bummer. How is a patient suppose to judge the quality of the hospital she enters?
The hospital industry finds it a better investment to promote the perception of quality rather than invest in actually quality-enhancements. This will continue to be true as long as patients are indifferent to actual quality rather than perceived quality.
But hospitals rated better by US News did do better in a couple of things. So it is only the Health Grades ranking that wasn’t so hot. (Measurement was by mortality rates for three procedures.)
There is still a lot of work to be done! I hope I don’t get sick before better rankings come out!