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Recent News and Articles on the Keywords: hospital quality + hospital rankings + hospital  Related to the article below (Last Update: 5/19/2008)

Hospitals rated badly for levels of care and food
This is Wiltshire.co.uk, UK - May 14, 2008
However, Great Western Hospital spokesman Chris Birdsall said the GWH had already begun responding to the survey, conducted in July 2007, by bringing in ...
NHS hospital rankings: your experiences
guardian.co.uk, UK - May 14, 2008
Hospitals varied widely in patients reports of the quality of meals, cleanliness, responsiveness to call buttons and the extent to which patients were ...
MedAssets to Acquire Accuro Healthcare - Final
Insurance News Net (press release), PA - May 18, 2008
Specifically the capabilities of Accuro and its employees accelerates our growth strategy to become the ASP technology leader in the hospital revenue cycle ...
Sacred Heart receives top honors for hospital care
Walton Sun, FL - May 9, 2008
According to a press release from Sacred Heart, hospitals across the country have been submitting data to the Hospital Quality Alliance since 2006, ...
Winchester Hospital named one of best places to work
Woburn Advocate, MA - May 9, 2008
Winchester Hospital has been named one of Boston Business Journal?s Best Places to Work in Massachusetts for the sixth year in a row. ...
Spicy Pickle? Teams With Children?s Memorial Hospital To Raise ...
Business Wire (press release), CA - May 5, 2008
Children?s Memorial Hospital, Chicago, is recognized as one of the top pediatric hospitals in the country by rankings published in US News & World Report. ...
MEDHOST Advances HIS Integration With Discrete Patient Data ...
Business Wire (press release), CA - May 13, 2008
Stanly Memorial Hospital in Albermarle, NC, and Conway Medical Center in Conway, SC, are two of the first hospitals to share discrete patient data between ...
Nash Health Care named top NC hospital
Rocky Mount Telegram, NC - May 5, 2008
"The surgeons that operate at Nash General Hospital and Nash Day Hospital are committed to continuous quality improvement and are proud of this recognition ...
Lincoln hospital gets high marks from patients
Bloomington Pantagraph,  USA - May 2, 2008
The site does not rank hospitals on overall scores, but community development director Marty Ahrends said hospital officials have compared the rankings to ...
Home Sweet Home Birth
Synapse, CA - May 8, 2008
Despite the fact that 99 percent of births in the United States happen within the hospital, our rankings in maternal and perinatal mortality rank very low ...
Source: Google News

Evaluation of the complication rate as a measure of quality of care in coronary artery bypass graft … -
JH Silber, PR Rosenbaum, JS Schwartz, RN Ross, SV … - JAMA, 1995 - Am Med Assoc
... CONCLUSIONS--Hospital rankings based on complication rates provide different
information than those ... rates should not be used to judge hospital quality of care ...

… Choice of Outcome Measure and Hospital Rank in General Surgical Procedures: Implications for Quality … -
JH SILBER, PR ROSENBAUM, SV WILLIAMS, RN ROSS, JS … - International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 1997 - ISQHC
... Such a result suggested that: (1) ranking of hospitals ... rankings performed using the
failure rate and (2 ... may not adequately reflect hospital quality, but instead ...

Hospital Quality for Acute Myocardial Infarction: Correlation Among Process Measures and … -
EH Bradley, J Herrin, B Elbel, RL McNamara, DJ … - JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2006 - jama.waldenu.edu
... indicates that different process measures reflect distinct components of quality
in AMI care. Recent research 18 has shown that hospital rankings can vary ...
-

Impact of Hospital Volume on Operative Mortality for Major Cancer Surgery -
CB Begg, LD Cramer, WJ Hoskins, MF Brennan - JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 1998 - jama.waldenu.edu
... of these 2 rankings are presented in Table 1, using the Kendall rank statistic. ... Effects
of surgeon volume and hospital volume on quality of care in ...
-

Measuring outcomes of hospital care using multiple risk-adjusted indexes -
S DesHarnais, LF McMahon Jr, R Wroblewski - Health Serv Res, 1991 - pubmedcentral.nih.gov
... Adequate overall measures of hospital quality will need to ... to validly represent a
hospital's performance: those hospitals with high rankings on their ...

Identifying Poor-Quality Hospitals: Can Hospital Mortality Rates Detect Quality Problems for Medical … -
TP HOFER, RA HAYWARD - Medical Care, 1996 - lww-medicalcare.com
... advertising,5 and used as a ranking criterion for a ... of the data used in the
rankings.13 However ... to an improved ability to target poor-quality hospital.19 Our ...

Accuracy of Risk-Adjusted Mortality Rate As a Measure of Hospital Quality of Care. -
JW Thomas, TP Hofer - Medical Care, 1999 - lww-medicalcare.com
... of physician and nursing care, appropriateness of use of hospital services, patient ...
This methodology was found to provide quality rankings generally similar to ...

Hospital Readmissions as a Measure of Quality of Health Care Advantages and Limitations -
J Benbassat, M Taragin - Archives of Internal Medicine, 2000 - Am Med Assoc
... hospital quality: mortality, readmissions, and complications. They ranked 300 hospitals
on each index, and found no relationship between a hospital's ranking ...

… Hospital Mortality Rates for Six Common Medical Diagnoses: Implications for Profiling Hospital … -
GE Rosenthal, SCD Amrik Shah, LE Way, DL Harper - Medical Care, 1998 - lww-medicalcare.com
... that correlations between mortality rates and agreement between hospital rankings
were generally ... diagnoses are an imprecise measure of hospital quality and may ...

… of a Risk Index for Mortality, Intensive Care Unit Stay, and Overall Hospital Length of Stay After … -
JV Tu, SB Jaglal, CD Naylor - Circulation, 1995 - Am Heart Assoc
... are determined annually to reflect temporal improvements in the quality of surgical
care. ... for comorbidity had no effect on CABG hospital rankings once clinical ...

Source: Google Scholar

Hospital Quality Rankings: What Is Behind The Numbers? When Choosing A Hospital Or Doctor, Find Sources You Can Trust
The plethora of hospital ranking systems can be confusing when you need to select a physician or hospital. Tempting as it is to use one of the "best of" listings, how do you know which ratings are legitimate?

Loyola University Health System's Center for Clinical Effectiveness, which coordinates the institution's quality improvement programs and initiatives, says to be sure the rankings are open to peer review and based on scientifically valid measures - because many are not.
"More than 20 companies and government agencies report, rank or rate physicians and hospitals, but the methodology and data sources vary considerably," said Dr. William M. Barron, center director and Loyola's vice president of quality and patient safety, Maywood, Ill. "As a result, one gets different results. That is why a hospital that achieves a stellar grade from one ranking system may not even appear on a different system's list."

So how can you tell which ratings measure up?

"First," said Barron, "choose a source that is open about its methodology. Find out exactly what they are measuring, the data sources and how old the data is."

If it is Medicare-only data, keep in mind that this involves a specific age group, people over the age of 65. That information may not be applicable to younger adults and children. Does the ranking system use billing data only or is it supplemented with clinical data? In addition, results can be quite different unless they appropriately take into account how sick patients are and what other serious medical conditions are present - this is a very difficult and complex science.

Consumers should be extra cautious if the firm that does the rankings requires a hospital or physician to pay a fee in order to be ranked or if there is a charge to see the rankings.

Some entities rank hospitals based on nationally recognized measures of outcomes and key processes of care, and generally, that is good. Other companies base their listings on the reputation or popularity of hospitals and/or physicians.

Barron said that the public should not base healthcare decisions on physician popularity polls. "Reputation is not a scientific measure of quality," he said. "Therefore, such rankings have no scientific validity."
Castle Connolly, Chicago magazine, Consumers' CHECKBOOK Guide to Top Doctors, MDNationwide and Best Doctors base their rankings on reputation, according to Barron. U.S. News & World Report bases its rankings partially on reputation.

"Some companies, such as HealthGrades, will not fully reveal what their rankings are based on and how the final rankings are calculated," said Barron, professor of medicine, and obstetrics & gynecology, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, Maywood. "That's a concern."

Other surveys, including The Leapfrog Group, rely on self-reported data, said Barron, noting that this can be a problem because there is no validation of the information. "To the extent that providers are honest, you get an accurate reading. But some providers, sometimes inadvertently, may try to make themselves look better," he said.

Among other entities that produce reports are WebMD Quality Services, J.D. Power and Associates and the Thomson 100 Top Hospitals (formerly The Solucient 100 Top Hospitals).

"Several insurance companies have jumped on the bandwagon, too, launching their own online hospital comparison information tools for employers, members and hospitals," said Barron. "Most such report cards do not restrict measurement to nationally validated measures of quality. Each insurance company uses a unique set of measures, organized in a unique way.

"Not only is this scientifically suspect, but it is extremely confusing to the public," he added.

"Measurement of quality is a brand new science, dramatically ramping up in the past five years as the public has demanded more information," said Barron. "Look for transparency, where information is complete and fully visible. That transparency provides the opportunity for the scientific community to review, edit, modify and even change the methodology."

The National Quality Forum (NQF) is a public/private partnership charged with the task of creating a national quality measurement and reporting system. "NQF collects and reviews measures and puts them through a rigorous evaluation process," said Barron. "It endorses those determined to be scientifically valid.

"Loyola is supportive of the idea that the public should focus on using report cards or measures that have been endorsed by the NQF," he said. "The Joint Commission and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) use NQF measures."

Barron said that Loyola has been putting quality measures on its Web site http://www.LoyolaMedicine.org/quality for three years, including measures that are not available publicly elsewhere.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services CMS ranks Loyola University Medical Center among the best hospitals in the nation for the treatment of heart failure. The report on quality and cost of healthcare shows that Loyola is in the top 38 hospitals nationwide and is one of only two hospitals in Illinois with the lowest death rates from heart failure.

Loyola University Health System, a wholly owned subsidiary of Loyola University Chicago (LUC), includes the private teaching hospital at Loyola University Medical Center (LUMC),14 specialty and primary care centers in the western and southwestern suburbs, the Loyola Ambulatory Surgery Center at Oakbrook and the Loyola Oakbrook Terrace Imaging Center; and serves as co-owner-operator of RML Specialty Hospital, a long-term acute hospital specializing in ventilation weaning and other medically complex patients in suburban Hinsdale, Ill. Loyola is nationally recognized for its specialty care and groundbreaking research in cancer, neurological disorders, neonatology and the treatment of heart disease. The 61-acre medical center campus in Maywood, Ill., includes the 589-licensed bed Loyola University Hospital with a Level I trauma center, the region's largest burn unit, one of the Midwest's most comprehensive organ transplant programs, the Russo Surgical Pavilion and the Ronald McDonald® Children's Hospital of LUMC. Also on campus are Loyola's Center for Heart & Vascular Medicine, the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, Loyola Outpatient Center and LUC Stritch School of Medicine. The medical school includes the Cardiovascular Institute, Oncology Institute, Burn & Shock Trauma Institute, Neuroscience Institute and the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy.

http://www.LoyolaMedicine.org
 
 
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