Survey: Hospital Death Risk Gap Growing
All hospitals are not created equal. A survey of hospitals nationwide finds wide disparities in patient outcomes between the country's best hospitals and the rest.
The fifth annual survey, released Monday by HealthGrades, a company that rates healthcare quality, finds a large difference between the 266 U.S. hospitals to which it gave its highest rating, and the other 4,705 it considered.
It also shows that difference is getting bigger.
As The Early Show medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay explained Monday, patients undergoing 16 particular procedures were found to have a 28 percent lower risk of dying in the highest-rated hospitals than in the others.
HealthGrades calls the gap in the quality of care between the best and the rest a "preventable" and "troubling" phenomenon.
Senay stressed the survey is a reminder that it can be important to do your homework, because how experienced and well-run a hospital is may affect the outcome of your stay there.
Senay says the survey looked at records of more than 40 million hospital stays at more than 4,900 hospitals across the country.
For certain illnesses, she adds, the gap was even wider than 28 percent. For a severe complication of diabetes called diabetic acidosis, the risk of death was 40 percent lower in the top-rated hospitals. For pancreatitis, it was 36 percent lower. For pneumonia, 33 percent. And for patients with heart failure, the risk of dying was 32 percent lower in the top-rated hospitals than in other facilities.
There was also a difference in the outcome of non-fatal cases.
Overall, the complication rate was 5 percent lower in the hospitals that were rated best, Senay says. After repairs of hip fractures, complications were 11 percent lower. Partial hip replacements produced 10 percent fewer complications, and surgeries to remove men's prostates resulted in 8 percent fewer complications.
What sets the best apart?
The authors of the survey say they're the hospitals most committed to raising their standards, and to consistency throughout their operations. In fact, Senay notes, the hospitals considered best four years ago were found to have improved more since that time than the hospitals that presumably had the most room for improvement. So, this survey suggests that the best keep getting better, and have been widening the gap.
The two top-rated states in the survey were Florida and Minnesota. In each of those states, more than half the hospitals are in that highest ranking. Thirty-three other states, plus the District of Columbia, have at least one.
As for the other 15 states, Senay says it's important to note that many hospitals across the country that didn't make that top group still do certain things extremely well. Ratings are broken down by procedure on the company's Web site for all the hospitals surveyed.
Senay adds that even in the top-ranked group, you should check ratings for individual procedures. It's possible for elite hospitals to be relatively weak in certain areas.
Of course, Senay concludes, this survey isn't the only source of information about hospital quality. Depending on where you live, state or local health departments can be another excellent source of information.