[Stoat]

Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence™

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence™

HealthGrades Names Top 50 Cities for Hospital Care

 

 

Did Your City Make the List?

HealthGrades Quality Study Identifies Hospitals in Top 5% in Nation; Cities that Have Highest Concentration of Top Hospitals 

HealthGrades knows that you and your family are concerned about the quality of hospital care in your community. So we’ve released the first-ever list of America’s Top 50 Cities for Hospital Care. The rankings are based on a comprehensive study of patient death and complication rates at the nation’s nearly 5,000 hospitals.

The Top 50 Cities for Hospital Care list is part of HealthGrades Hospital Quality and Clinical Excellence study. As part of the study, HealthGrades identified those hospitals performing in the top 5% nationwide across 26 different medical procedures and diagnoses, then ranked cities by highest percentage of these Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence™. 

West Palm Beach, FL ranked #1 in the nation, with nine out of 12 hospitals designated as top-performers. Rounding out the top five markets for hospital care quality were: Brownsville, TX, Dayton, OH, Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN and Tucson, AZ, respectively. The complete list of Top 50 Cities for Hospital Care and all Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence can be found at www.healthgrades.com.

Unlike other hospital quality studies, HealthGrades evaluates hospitals solely on patients’ clinical outcomes: risk-adjusted mortality and inhospital complications. HealthGrades’ analysis is based on approximately 40 million Medicare patient discharges for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009.

This year’s study found that American families are highly aware of differences in hospital quality within their communities, expect continued transparency from hospitals when it comes to quality, and rely on clinical quality ratings as a trusted source when choosing a provider.

“Our research indicates that the recent health care reform debate and highly-publicized reports about the persistence of wide variation in the quality of patient care at U.S. hospitals have resonated with the American public,” said Dr. Rick May, HealthGrades vice president of clinical quality services and study co-author. “No longer is today’s health care consumer simply looking for the least expensive option when it comes to medical care. They expect high quality and are willing to go out of their way to get it.”

According to a survey of nearly 15,000 visitors to HealthGrades.com that was included in HealthGrades Hospital Quality and Clinical Excellence study:

• 83.4% of consumers are very or somewhat concerned about hospital quality in their community.

• Almost all patients surveyed, 93.8%, reported being willing to go out of their way (drive further, reschedule appointments) to seek care at a more highly rated hospital. The majority of health care consumers surveyed, 64.9%, also stated that they would be willing to pay more out of pocket to seek care at a top-rated hospital.

• Over half, 57.0%, believe online hospital quality ratings are a trustworthy source of information.

• 66.8% want access to more quality information and 60.7% of survey respondents feel the federal government should pay highly-performing hospitals more.

Other key findings from the study are as follows:

• Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence (Top 5% in the nation) outperform all other hospitals across all of the 17 mortality cohorts and six of nine complication cohorts studied from 2007 through 2009.

• Specifically, Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence had a 29.82% lower risk-adjusted inhospital mortality rate and a 1.91% lower risk-adjusted inhospital complication rate among Medicare beneficiaries compared to all other hospitals.

• In fact, if all hospitals performed at this level, 158,684 Medicare lives could potentially have been saved and 3,511 Medicare inhospital complications could potentially have been avoided.

HealthGrades Top 50 Cities for Hospital Care
Click here to see the list of hospitals that rank top 5% in the nation for each city.

1. West Palm Beach, FL

2. Brownsville, TX

3. Dayton, OH

4. Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN

5. Tucson, AZ

6. Cincinnati, OH

7. Phoenix AZ

8. Greenville, SC

9. Chattanooga, TN

10. Richmond, VA

11. Cedar Rapids, IA

12. Hartford/New Haven, CT

13. Cleveland, OH

14. Grand Rapids, MI

15. Baltimore, MD

16. Chicago, IL

17. San Diego, CA

18. Detroit, MI

19. Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, FL

20. St. Louis, MO

21. Orlando, FL

22. Houston, TX

23. Wilkes Barre, PA

24. La Crosse-Eau Claire, WI

25. Milwaukee, WI

26. Evansville, IN

27. Atlanta, GA

28. Colorado Springs, CO

29. Jacksonville, FL

30. Columbia, MO

31. Tri-Cities, TN

32. Johnstown/Altoona, PA

33. Savannah, GA

34. Lincoln, NE

35. Denver, CO

36. Los Angeles, CA

37. Eugene, OR

38. Des Moines/Ames, IA

39. Youngstown, OH

40. Wichita, KS

41. Davenport, IA

42. Champaign, IL

43. Columbus, OH

44. Springfield, MO

45. Memphis, TN

46. Syracuse, NY

47. Pittsburgh, PA

48. San Francisco, CA

49. Louisville, KY

50. New York, NY

[Stoat]

Prior to the release of this study, I confess that I was unfamiliar with Healthgrades. A cursory check of their website failed to answer some of my questions such as who funds them, and uncovered this strange snippet at the very bottom of the linked PDF file showing the individual hospitals

Designated Market Areas are geographic areas defined by The Nielsen Company as a group of counties that make
up a particular television market.:

 

Naturally, this begs the obvious question of what in the heck does a television ratings company and their data acquisition methodology have to do with a study on hospitals?

Questions such as this raise red flags for me as to the validity and value of the study, but because I didn't easily find clear answers to my questions I thought that I'd post it at Free Republic anyway so that readers here can make up their own minds as to whether this study has any worth or not.

One of the factors that made me want to get this study to a wider readership is that the NHS hospitals in the UK have been ranked in similar ways for decades, and although I am of course completely opposed to Socialized medicine and ZeroCare I had always been intrigued by these UK hospital rankings and have wished for similar rankings to be available here in the USA.  This study and its associated rankings are touted as the first of its kind and so I felt it's quite noteworthy for that reason alone.  How accurate the data is of course is an entirely different matter ;-)

[OrioleFan]

The hospitals that rank lowest will be assigned by Obama’s HHS to handle end of life counciling to senior citizens. /morbid sarc

[HangnJudge]

My little Hospital
Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge
http://www.healthgrades.com/hospital-directory/tennessee-tn/methodist-medical-center-of-oak-ridge-hgst37fae6a6440034
was a Clinical Excellence hospital...
In 2009, 2010, and 2011

Pat on back...

http://www.healthgrades.com/consumer/index.cfm?fuseaction=mod&modtype=hospitals&modact=hospitals_search_results&prodtype=hosprat&state=TN&city=Oak%20Ridge&maparea=&proc=&tabset=dhp

[mad_as_he$$]

ping

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

A useless ranking. Mortality depends on many things, including the average age of the patients.

[DManA]

Some of the best hospitals get the most challenging cases and that makes their mortality numbers look bad.

[Stoat]

Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence Press Release HealthGrades

 

HealthGrades’ Hospital Ratings
As part of this study, HealthGrades rates each of the nation’s 5,000 nonfederal hospitals in 26 procedures and diagnoses, allowing individuals to compare their local hospitals online at www.healthgrades.com. HealthGrades’ hospital ratings are independently created; no hospital can opt-in or opt-out of being rated, and no hospital pays to be rated. Mortality and complication rates are risk adjusted, which takes into account differing levels of severity of patient illness at different hospitals and allows for hospitals to be compared equally.

 

 

(emphasis mine)

[TASMANIANRED]

The Listing for Louisville, Ky....lists a hospital in Indiana.

[Moonman62]

I would like to say something good about Memorial Pembroke and Memorial West which are both in Pembroke Pines Florida and rated in the top 5% in the nation. These two hospitals are public and part of the South Broward Hospital District. Their tax rate is low (it is part of property taxes), and they usually lower it year after year. They also do a lot of charity work.

While they aren't perfect I've been to both hospitals a few times and it's usually a very good experience. In the few areas where they are lacking I've noticed them making improvements since I've been going there over the past few years. On occasion I've heard employees in the community (for instance, in the supermarket) talk to others about how they like working there. If only all public institutions did such a good job.

[dblup]

Sure, the next time I take a loved one in for successful cancer treatment, as we just did with my mother, I’ll turn up my nose at Mayo Clinic in Rochester and head straight to Brownsville, Texas.

NOT!!!