Malpractice News: HealthGrades Releases Annual Hospital Quality in America Study

Malpractice News: In October 2008, HealthGrades, a national healthcare ratings organization, released their annual report on the quality of care at the nation’s hospitals. According to the study, patients being treated at hospitals the organization evaluated as “top-rated” have a 70 percent lower chance of dying as compared to patients treated at the lowest-rated hospitals.

The organization studied patient outcomes at approximately 5,000 hospitals and analyzed over 41 million Medicare hospitalization records from 2005 to 2007 in gathering information for the report.

The study determined that:

54 percent of potentially preventable deaths were associated with only four diagnoses: sepsis, heart failure, pneumonia and respiratory failure.
The East North Central region (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin) had the lowest overall risk-adjusted mortality rates, while the East South Central region (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee) had the highest rates.
The East North Central region had the highest percentage of best performing hospitals.
Fewer than 7 percent of hospitals within the New England region (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) were top-performing hospitals.

The 2009 quality ratings are available at the HealthGrades Web site, www.healthgrades.com.

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