News: Hospital quality ratings sites fall short, study says
May 26, 2011
CDI Strategies - Volume 5, Issue 11
“Publicly marketed hospital rating systems of surgical quality such as the US News & World Report ‘America's Best Hospitals’ and HealthGrades ‘Best Hospitals’… ratings fail to identify other high-volume hospitals of equal quality,” according to a report in the Archives of Surgery.
The study sought to see if the facilities considered “best hospitals” had lower mortality rates than other facilities which perform cancer surgery. The study looked at three surgical types: pancreatectomy, esophagectomy, and colectomy. After “controlling for difference in hospital volume,” the study concluded that “risk adjusted mortality was only significantly lower at the US News & World Report best hospitals for colectomy and was not significantly lower at HealthGrades” for the three procedures.