If Physicians' Opinions are a Poor Way to Rank Hospitals, so is Mortality
April 21, 2010
Mortality rates are a poor measure for ranking hospitals based on quality, according to a new article in the British Medical Journal.
The article, coauthored by a researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was released just after a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine questioned U.S. News and World Report's heavy reliance on physicians' opinions for its rankings.
That Annals study recommended using more objective measures, which often include mortality data because they are easy to compile.
The authors of the new article argued overall mortality rates are a poor measure because only one of every 20 hospital deaths in the United States is preventable.
Rather than use gross mortality statistics, the authors suggested using two other measures to judge hospitals:
- mortality rates associated with high risk procedures heavily dependent on technical skill, such as intrauterine transfusion and heart surgery.
- non-mortality outcomes that are heavily influenced by quality of care, such as rates of hospital acquired bloodstream infection.
Read the British Medical Journal's report on mortality statistics.
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