For example, short wait times between a patient's arrival at the
reception desk and her arrival in pre-op say a lot about a center's
scheduling and efficiency, says Dr. Kuznets. "Discharge times show
sufficient staff, appropriate discharge criteria and that patients aren't
overmedicated."
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T
wo recent studies present contrasting views on the value of insights that pub-
licly available healthcare ratings offer.
In the first, published in the March issue of the journal Health Affairs
(tinyurl.com/pd5ffzr), researchers from Johns Hopkins, Harvard and other
academic institutions suggest that the hospital quality and safety rank-
ings regularly published by U.S. News & World Report, Consumer
Reports and other media outlets are more confusing than clarify-
ing, since each rating method follows a different focus to a differ-
ent conclusion. Comparing ratings assigned between July
2012 and July 2013, the researchers noted that "no hospi-
tal was rated as a high performer by all four national rat-
ing systems," and that "only 10 percent of the 844 hospi-
tals rated as a high performer by one rating system were
rated as a high performer by any of the other rating systems."
In the other study, published online by the Journal of General Internal Medicine
(tinyurl.com/phvocy8), McKinley Glover, MD, MHS, a clinical fellow in Massachusetts General
Hospital's department of radiology, found a positive correlation between how highly a hospital
is rated in social-networking site Facebook's 1-to-5-star reviewing feature, and how low its rate of
readmissions within 30 days after discharge is. "Since user-generated social media feedback
appears to be reflective of patient outcomes," writes Dr. Glover, "hospitals and healthcare leaders
should not underestimate social media's value in developing quality improvement programs."
— David Bernard
WORD ON THE STREET
Which Indicators Are Most Meaningful?
z HOW DO YOU MEAS-
URE UP? Infection rates,
benchmarking successes,
and even patient satisfac-
tion scores can be used to
promote your facility.
