Choosing a Hospital Based on Quality
Have you purchased a new car or appliance lately? In light of the economy, "lately" may be a year or two ago. Anyway, I would guess that you compared quality and cost before making the purchase. Consumer Reports and multiple on line resources enable you to shop for value before making a major investment.
What about your most precious investment, your health? Where can you obtain information about the value (quality/cost) of care provided by local hospitals and physicians?
We have seen the hospital ads proclaiming "one of the best", "most outstanding", and "top 100". Yet the consumer (patient) remains confused. The awards and honors are nice, but how do we determine which hospitals "the best" for our particular needs?
A recent ranking of the nation's top 100 hospitals has been published. The ‘Thomson Reuter's 100 top hospitals - 2008' (wm.thomsonreuters.com) is a well respected survey that accounts for the type of hospital (research, teaching, community) and its size.
The data is derived from Medicare patients and includes nine key measures including mortality rates, complications, patient safety, and hospital financial out comes.
The report concludes that "if all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as patients in the top 100 hospitals;
- 107,000 additional patients survive each year
- 132,000 patient complications avoided annually
- Expenses decline by 5.9 billion dollars
It is disappointing to note that Peoria's hospitals do not make the top 100 ranking. All three of our hospitals are intensely focused on their own quality improvement initiatives, but if we are to become a truly outstanding downstate medical center, a collaborative and transparent approach needs to supersede the current " one-upmanship" strategy. Quality improvement needs to be viewed as a community endeavor benefiting everyone, and not a promotional tool intended to grow market share.
For additional resources that compare hospital outcome measures, go to www.junctionmedical.com and click on the links tab.
