Last week I paid for access to Consumer Reports magazine to get washer/dryer ratings. While I was at it, I looked to see what else was available. In the September 2013 magazine, hospitals around the US are rated in terms of “avoiding adverse events in Medicare patients during their hospital stay for surgery. Specifically, the Ratings are based on the percentage of a hospital’s surgery patients who died in the hospital or stayed longer than expected for their procedure.”
“The analysis looked at Medicare claims data from 2009 through 2011 for patients undergoing 27 categories of common scheduled surgeries. For each hospital, the results for all procedures are combined into an overall surgery Rating. …[Some] hospitals themselves use this approach to monitor quality.”
The ratings are 5 levels from “Better” to “Worse.”
In Northern and Central California, these hospitals received a “Better” overall surgery rating: (in alphabetical order)
Enloe Medical Center, Chico
French Hospital, San Luis Obispo
Fresno Heart and Surgical Hospital
Fresno Surgical Hospital
Mercy Medical Center Redding
Oroville Hospital
Sacramento Medical Center
Sequoia Hospital, Redwood City
Shasta Regional Medical Center, Redding
St. Helena Hospital Napa Valley, St. Helena
Sutter Lakeside Hospital, Lakeport
Sutter Surgical Hospital – North Valley, Yuba City
Washington Hospital, Fremont
These hospitals received the next rating lower than “Better”:
Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Berkeley
Alta Bates Summit Medical Center – Summit Campus, Oakland
Bakersfield Heart Hospital, Bakersfield
Clovis Community Medical Center, Clovis
El Camino Hospital, Mountain View
Mercy General Hospital, Sacramento
Mercy Hospitals of Bakersfield, Bakersfield
Methodist Hospital of Sacramento
Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, Grass Valley
St. Elizabeth Community Hospital, Red Bluff
St. Joseph Hospital, Eureka
St. Joseph’s Medical Center, Stockton
Stanislaus Surgical Hospital, Modesto
Sutter Amador Hospital, Jackson
Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital, Auburn
Sutter Davis Hospital, Davis
Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento
See consumerreports.org/hospitalratings for:
- an article on “How Safe is Your Hospital” (available at no charge)
- “Your Safer-Surgery Survival Guide” (available at no charge)
- rankings for 2463 hospitals in the US. Ratings are for 5 procedures including replacement of the hip or knee and angioplasty. And there are scores for safety, bloodstream infections, avoiding readmissions, drug information, and adverse events. (there is a fee to see the info)
Robin