Responding to patient concern about the quality of care in U.S. hospitals, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services began measuring hospital performance and reporting this performance on their Web site, Hospital Compare.
Patients reasoned that a higher grade on these measures would mean a safer hospital stay.
However, a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association clearly states that the performance criteria actually predict only small differences in hospital risk-adjusted mortality rates. For example, hospitals performing in the 75th percentile on 10 performance measures had only slightly better mortality rates compared with institutions performing in the 25th percentile.
The researchers conclude that efforts should be made to develop performance measures that are tightly linked to patient outcomes, implying that ratings on the Hospital Compare website may not be a good basis for choosing a hospital.
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