While the death rates for each hospital have been known to board members and doctors of those hospitals, USA Today and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Hospital Compare, run by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has made the findings public. Now potential patients and others can see just how their local hospital compares to the national average – or at least the government’s best estimates – in the categories of heart attacks, heart failure, and pneumonia. In the past, information only stating how a hospital was performing against the national average was released; there were no numbers.
Many people will agree that revealing the death rates is a good idea. It allows for greater transparency in an area where the public has been ignorant in the past. CMS’ Kerry Weems believes this information will not only benefit the communities where the hospitals are located, but will also “encourage hospitals to excel in the quality of care they provide.” Rich Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, agrees that making this information public is a good thing, too, since most people see the death rate statistics as indicators of how well the hospitals are performing.
However, some, like Jeffrey Kirsch, the chairman of anesthesiology at Oregon Health and Science University, think the information may be misleading. He says it’s a good start, but “it is not enough and not the right type of information.” Robert Kaplan, Wasserman chairman of the Department of Health Services in the School of Public Health at UCLA agrees with Kirsch. Kaplan believes patients would benefit more from other key indicators that go beyond mortality rates and the methodology that found the averages.
CMS tried to give these standings to the public back in the ’90s, but critics complained that the list didn’t show who these patients were based on age, economics, and health. The new analysis simply shows some of the most common life-threatening conditions people will seek hospital care for rather than the overall mortality rates of the hospitals. This “strict statistical formula” gives the agency confidence that the average death rates are correct.
The Best
One of the examples used in the USA Today article is Lehigh Valley Hospital in Pennsylvania, which comes in at the top for the country’s lowest heart attack death rate at 11.6% on average. Lehigh Valley claims they were using balloons to clear clogged arteries before it became common to do so. Doctors at Lehigh say their attention to detail and teamwork are what help them. They have given paramedics electrocardiograms so they can diagnose heart attacks before patients are at the hospital. This is done so the hospital is prepared for the patient. The attention to detail even goes into the trip from the emergency room to the room where angioplasty will be performed. In the USA Today example, the elevator doors held up the trip for one patient. They realized that if they lock down the elevators, they can take three or four minutes off the time it takes in life or death situations.
The Worst
There are many hospitals that fall short of Lehigh Valley’s mortality rate. And this could be for many reasons. Money allocated to the hospital, the general health of the local population, or even the quality of doctors and nurses. One thing found in these numbers is that doctors realize that many patients who see their personal physician for follow-ups may wind up dying because those personal physicians are not up to snuff in some cases. Baylor All-Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth, where heart failure deaths are higher than average, has found this to be the case. Out of 31 heart failure deaths, ten of those occurred in the hospital. This suggested to Baylor’s chief medical officer, Paul Convery, that the hospital is responsible for patients even after they’ve gone home. Baylor has improved and even won this year’s National Quality Health Care Award.
However, what this means to the hospital and what it means to patients and their families are two separate issues. Yes, it’s good information to have in case someone is in need of hospital care, but just because you’re going to the best hospital in the country doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get the best care that specific day (although the chances of you being ignored and left to die in the waiting room are slim). Doctors are overworked, their staffs overworked and underpaid, and HMOs make it hard for all patients to receive quality care. While no one will argue that patients bare much of the responsibility in taking care of themselves to ensure they don’t have a heart attack in the first place, it might still be comforting to know we aren’t going to wind up as part of the mortality rates because the hospital didn’t do its job.
For information on your local hospital, see the HHS Hospital Compare site. And if you are in need of a medical malpractice lawyer, please contact an experienced personal injury lawyer in your area.
