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.
I'm guessing that variations such as patient age and preexisting conditions (such as cancer) would be dealt with under the umbrella of "risk-adjusted mortality" and nosocomial infections would be factored in under "inhospital complications".
Thanks. One of the points I was trying to make is that good hospitals sometimes taken in the very sick, so their patient population may be closer to death than those who go to community hospitals. The outcome for the hospitals with the more sickly patients will have a higher mortality than those with less sickly patients. Hope I’m making myself clear.
As an example, my son is an anesthesia technician at a private hospital for a medical school in Dallas. Some of the surgeries they do are not performed anywhere else in the world. The hospital’s mortality rate is bound to be higher than other facilities.