According to a recent study published by HealthGrades (HGRD), Patients have on average a 71 percent lower chance of dying at the nation’s top-rated hospitals compared with the lowest-rated hospitals during 18 common procedures and conditions. These procedures ranged from hart attack to pneumonia to valve replacement surgery. This study also founded that there is a huge disparity that exists between the quality of care between the highest-performing hospitals and lower rated hospitals.
The HealthGrades study of patient outcomes includes over 41 million Medicare hospitalization records over the years 2004 to 2006. This study examined procedures and detailed outcomes for every hospital within the US.2008. This study is now made public at the following URL: www.healthgrades.com.
Furthermore, mortality rates in any hospital within the US has improved 11.8% from data extrapolated in 2004 and 2006. In fact, top rated hospitals have much higher improved over the national average, in particular 12.8%. Procedures that have shown the most improvement in mortality rates were pancreatitis (19.2 percent), pulmonary embolism (17.4 percent) and diabetic acidosis and coma (16.6 percent). Those with the smallest improvement were abdominal aorta (0.4 percent), coronary interventional procedures such as angioplasties and stents (0.8 percent) and treatment of heart attack (8.9 percent).
“While we are pleased to see that the hospital industry’s focus on improving care quality has continued to reduce mortality rates, a significant variation in quality among the nation’s best and poorest-performing hospitals persists,” said Samantha Collier, MD, HealthGrades’ chief medical officer and one of the authors of the study. “Concentrating on emulating practices from exemplary hospitals can result in improvement. If this focus were targeted to four key quality areas — heart failure, respiratory failure, sepsis, and pneumonia — the nation could achieve up to a 50-percent reduction in potentially preventable deaths.”
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