Consumer watchdog reports rating hospitals can make a big difference in attracting patients to hospitals. They could also sway consumer satisfaction scores which are a growing factor in reimbursement. But the grading criteria varies by program. That’s a source of concern for hospitals, particularly as they are part of healthcare marketing strategies. In a new report, a healthcare advocacy group is calling on these consumer reports to do a better job of collecting data and the criteria they use.
In an interesting turn of the tables, Healthcare Association of New York State issued a report card of its own for hospital graders and the results varied quite a bit. CMS fared well, for example, but U.S. News & World Report? Not so much. The healthcare business intelligence report made a case for why consumer groups should make their methodology more scientific.
“Acute care hospitals care for thousands of patients each year. During each visit, the typical patient is seen, evaluated, and cared for by a large team of clinicians, and often has multiple tests and procedures. Distilling this evaluation of comprehensive care down to a single score obscures the complex nature of our high-quality health care delivery system, leaving consumers with an incomplete picture of the quality of care delivered.”
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The scores ranged from 3 stars which meant the group met all or nearly all of HANYS’ criteria to 1/2 star if the report met one or none of the criteria it recommends. Here’s a breakdown
Joint Commission Quality Index 3
DOH Hospital Acquired Infection Report 3
Niagara Health Quality Coalition 2
It urged groups like Consumer Reports, Healthgrades and U.S. News & World Report to make their criteria and methodology transparent, use evidence-based measures, most current available data and clinical data to evaluate hospitals. It also recommended giving hospitals the opportunity to review consumer watchdog reports and respond, as some other consumer review publications do in other industries.
I can appreciate where the hospitals are coming from, but I don’t think this report will do much to change things. I suspect many consumers would be interested in getting the hospitals’ response to reports regardless of whether they believe them or not. The Washington Post’s story on the report quipped that the group failed to follow its own recommendations by sending each of the groups reviewed an advance copy to give them a chance to respond.
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