NEW HAVEN, Conn., July 9 (UPI) -- Hospitals ranked "America's Best" by U.S. News & World Report have lower cardiac death rates, says a new study, but that doesn't tell the whole story.
Yale researchers found that death rates were 16 percent in ranked hospitals versus 17.9 percent in unranked hospitals.
But the study also revealed an interesting caveat: Unranked hospitals had almost three times the number of lower-than-expected death rates as ranked hospitals, and among the ranked hospitals, 8 percent were still in the worst-performing group.
"The U.S. News & World Report ranking ... did identify a group of hospitals that was much more likely than non-ranked hospitals to have superb performance on 30-day mortality after acute myocardial infarction," the authors wrote. "However, our study also revealed that not all ranked hospitals had outstanding performance and many non-ranked hospitals performed well."
The team concluded that, while the rankings provide some guidance about outcomes, they fall short of identifying all the top hospitals that provide excellent post-heart attack care.
The researchers looked at 30-day death rates in 2003 in 13,662 patients admitted to 50 hospitals ranked as the best in cardiac care on the U.S. News list and in 254,907 patients admitted to 3,813 unranked hospitals.
The report is published in the July 9 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
