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Hospitals Rated On Most Serious Diseases
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Published: May 30, 2008
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TAMPA - Consumers looking to treat the most serious illnesses have a new way to compare local hospitals.
A system posted Thursday by Consumer Reports rates nearly 3,000 hospitals nationwide on the length of hospital stays and number of doctor visits for older adults facing chronic diseases including cancer, diabetes, renal failure, dementia, and liver, vascular and heart disease. Thirty-one Bay area hospitals are rated.
The ratings address complicated diseases that affect more than 90 million Americans. As a group, these diagnoses are responsible for seven of 10 deaths of older adults on Medicare, according to the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, the key source of data for the rating system.
John Santa, director of the ConsumerReportsHealth.org health ratings center, said his group simplified the atlas data so consumers can better decide whether they want to fight the disease aggressively - with a slew of doctors and specialists - or as conservatively as possible, such as in cases of late-stage cancer or when a person otherwise wants minimal treatment. The rating also includes the patient's after-Medicare out-of-pocket expense for a hospital stay.
"If you have a chronic disease, realize that you're getting a different kind of care depending on the hospital you go to," Santa said. "We don't want to make a judgment whether a hospital is good or bad. But when it comes to chronic disease, more treatment does not translate to better care."
These new ratings are just the latest in a slew of health care industry surveys and databases that has emerged in the past several years. Commercial, nonprofit and government sources evaluate centers using a myriad of criteria, ranging from patient satisfaction surveys to accreditation standards to vital statistics.
The Consumer Reports system, based on Medicare data, shows a variety of aggressive and conservative care ratings at hospitals in Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Hernando counties.
Among the 12 hospitals listed in Hillsborough and Pasco counties, Memorial Hospital in South Tampa was the most aggressive in doctor visits and stays, earning a 91 percent rating. On average, adult Medicare patients facing chronic illness there spent 24 days in the hospital and had 106 doctor visits during that stay. Officials from Memorial Hospital's owners, Tennessee-based Iasis Health Care, had no comment.
Pasco Regional Medical Center in Dade City had the two-county area's most conservative care, with a 25 percent rating. Hospital spokeswoman Susan Frimmel declined to comment until officials were able to analyze the data.
BayCare Health System, with nine Bay area hospitals, showed how similar hospitals received varied results in the Consumer Reports findings. BayCare's ratings ranged from South Florida Baptist in Plant City at 47 percent to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa at 90 percent.
Denise Remus, BayCare's chief quality officer, said some of the health system's busier, larger hospitals such as St. Joseph's may have more specialists on staff, translating to more doctor visits and more aggressive care. The converse may apply to a community-based hospital, where doctors are more familiar with patients, their families and wishes to get more conservative care.
"It does challenge us in a healthy way to ask questions," Remus said of the Dartmouth Medicare data, which has been compiled annually for nearly 30 years and is respected nationally. Internally, BayCare tracks quality issues, such as length of stay, using data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Remus said the Dartmouth data only looks at the sickest of patients facing complex, chronic conditions. She said the several weeklong hospital stays cited in the Consumer Reports study, for example, are longer than the five-day average that she said is descriptive of all patients at BayCare hospitals.
One of the best-known consumer health care ratings is www.hospital compare.hhs.gov, which launched four years ago. Operated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Hospital Compare now has 26 measurements by which to judge hospitals on its Web site, spokesman Don McLeod said. The most recent update added patient-experience survey results to the report and has been incredibly popular, he said.
Hospital Compare does not rate or grade hospitals, McLeod said. "We don't rank anything. Our purpose is to educate consumers so they can make an informed decision."
Reporter Mary Shedden can be reached at mshedden@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7365.
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