Study: Medicare’s Quality Ratings Aren’t Helping Patients

In 2005, Hospital Compare started rating more than 3,000 hospitals on how well they adhere to basic guidelines for clinical care, such as giving flu vaccinations to pneumonia patients. Over time, Hospital Compare has added the results of patient experience scores, readmission and mortality rates, and, most recently, rates of complications and other patient safety mishaps….

But the new study questions whether any of this was actually leading to better outcomes for patients, such as their chance of survival in the month after they were discharged. The study found that at the time Hospital Compare was launched, mortality rates for patients with three common ailments — heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia — were already decreasing. After those trends were taken into account, Hospital Compare was found to have no effect on the 30-day survival rate of heart attack and pneumonia patients, according to the study.

Full article from Jordan Rau in the Kaiser Health News worth reading.

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