Click before you pick hospital

Click before you pick hospital

By Eric P. Norwood

For the Journal-Constitution

Monday, February 23, 2009

Your mother suffers a stroke. After the shock subsides, you face a dizzying array of questions. Where can you take her? What hospital gives her the best chance of recovery? Who has the best track record of saving people?

Thanks to the worldwide Web, you now have the power to make wise, informed health care decisions to give your mom the best chances of surviving, recovering and living a fulfilling life.

In this new age of transparency, health care consumers can have access to independent information about health care providers. If you have a computer, or just access to the public library, you can find numerous, independent Web sites with objective information about the clinical quality of your local hospitals.

Since this information is provided by independent public or private agencies, you can get just the facts.

Good hospitals are embracing this new technology, and you should, too.

One such Web site, HealthGrades.com, includes valuable information about mortality rates and complication rates about every U.S. hospital. If your mom is sick, do you want to gamble with her life, or do you want to take her to the hospital that has the lowest mortality and complication rates?

Written in everyday language, there’s also a wide array of information at your fingertips about stroke, heart attacks, hip replacement and just about every medical issue that your family could face.

In a recent study, HealthGrades carefully analyzed nearly 41 million Medicare hospitalization records from 2005 to 2007.

The study found that only 5 percent of U.S. hospitals meet quality clinical standards to receive a HealthGrades’ designation as a Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence.

An estimated 152,666 lives could have been saved and 11,772 complications could have been avoided had all Medicare patients been treated at a Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence, the study found. In addition, these elite hospitals have mortality rates that are on average 27 percent lower, and complication rates that are on average 8 percent lower, than the U.S. average.

If you had the choice to take your mother to a hospital where mortality rates are 27 percent lower than average, wouldn’t you take her there?

HealthGrades also provides “star ratings,” which are quality ratings of 26 procedures and treatments for virtually every hospital in the country.

Each hospital receives a star rating based on its patient outcomes for mortality or complication rates for each procedure or treatment.

Hospitals with outcomes that are above average to a statistically significant degree receive a five-star rating. Hospitals with average outcomes receive a three-star rating, and hospitals with outcomes that are below average receive a one-star rating.

The star ratings are based on more than 70 million hospitalization records, and no hospital can opt in or out of HealthGrades’ rating process.

As Chief Executive Officer of DeKalb Medical, I believe very strongly that consumers have a right to know about their medical providers. I am also very proud of DeKalb Medical’s track record in clinical quality. We recently received a HealthGrades’ designation as a Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence, placing us in the top 5 percent of U.S. hospitals for clinical quality.

We have received top five-star ratings for treatment of stroke, heart attack, hip replacement, hip fracture repair and other clinical services.

Wherever you seek treatment, you owe it to yourself to get all the facts.

> Eric P. Norwood is president & CEO of DeKalb Medical.

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