TUESDAY, Oct. 12, 2004 (HealthDayNews) -- Cleveland residents may breathe easier knowing they now live in the top-ranked metropolitan area in the country when it comes to quality hospital care, according to a new nationwide survey.
Hospitals in Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, and Tampa, Fla., rounded out the top five best cities for hospital quality, according to 2003 data collected by HealthGrades Inc., which each year assesses the quality of the nation's health-care facilities.
Significant gains were also made nationwide in terms of the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease, the nation's number one killer, the survey found.
"Despite that significant improvement, however, there's still a big variation in quality from metropolitan area to area, and from hospital to hospital," said Dr. Samantha Collier, vice president for medical affairs at HealthGrades, a for-profit clearinghouse for health-care data used by government, industry, and others.
HealthGrades sifts through Medicare data on millions of patients aged 65 and older treated at thousands of institutions across the country, to come up with its annual list.
Then it calculates the relative performance of hospitals in 25 major urban centers in the United States for that year. In order, the rest are: Denver; Cincinnati; Chicago; Miami; Los Angeles; San Diego; Washington, D.C.; St. Louis; Atlanta; Houston; Pittsburgh; New York City; Boston; Kansas City, Mo.; Sacramento, Calif.; Dallas; San Francisco; Philadelphia; Seattle; and Portland, Ore.
Collier said it was tough to rank the very top urban centers for health-care excellence, because many perform very well even if they aren't currently ranked number one.
"A great example would be the Denver, Colo., area [which came in sixth place this year]. Last year the Denver metro area was No. 1," said Collier, a Denver resident. "They didn't improve as much as other areas, but that's because in previous surveys they were already far exceeding the national average."
She said a key component in the ranking is the breadth of variation between hospitals in a given area. "I feel fortunate living in Denver, because if I or my parents have a heart attack, the variation in quality between hospitals is pretty minimal."
In fact, Americans everywhere can feel better about cardiac care at the nation's hospitals, according to the latest HealthGrades report. It found that, since 2000, patients at U.S. hospitals now have a 17 percent better chance of surviving a heart attack; a 21 percent better chance of surviving coronary bypass; a 19 percent better chance of surviving angioplasty; and a 20 percent better chance of surviving congestive heart failure.
Why this significant an improvement in so short a time? According to Collier, "there's been a lot of focus and national attention on improving the care around cardiac disease, and since 2000 we've made significant advances in both pharmaceuticals and technology -- to identify cardiac disease sooner and be able to intervene sooner, and also to use pharmaceuticals and technologies that improve survival."
But she stressed that many cities still experience a wide hospital-to-hospital quality gap. Among the best U.S. hospitals cited in the survey: the University Hospitals of Cleveland; the Cleveland Clinic; Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit; Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis; the Mayo Clinic-Phoenix; and Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater, Fla.
The study didn't look at what makes a good hospital great, but Collier said she has one theory.
"All these hospitals have characteristics that are similar," she said. "They truly put quality and patient safety at the top. That comes from the board of directors, where quality and patient safety are at least as important as the finances of the hospital. Unfortunately, that's not the top priority of every hospital board in the United States."
She said consumers who live in areas with a wide variation in hospital-to-hospital quality should be pro-active in making sure they get the best care. "Not all hospitals are equal. Check out your hospital before you even choose your doctor in your enrollment period. Specifically, you want to know, 'Where does my doctor practice?' " she said. "Then check out those hospitals."
More information
For a closer look at the study, go to HealthGrades.
