GOLDEN, Colo., Oct. 14 (UPI) -- Patients have on average a 70 percent lower chance of dying at the top-rated U.S. hospitals compared with the lowest-rated hospitals, researchers said.
The eleventh annual Hospital Quality in America Study released by HealthGrades said while overall death rates declined from 2005 to 2007, the nation's best-performing hospitals were able to reduce their death rates at a much faster rate than poorly performing hospitals.
The study also found that if all hospitals performed at the level of five-star rated hospitals, 237,420 Medicare deaths could potentially have been prevented over the three years studied. More than half of those deaths were associated with four conditions: sepsis -- a life-threatening illness caused by systemic response to infection, pneumonia, heart failure and respiratory failure.
The study of patient outcomes at the nation's approximately 5,000 hospitals analyzed more than 41 million Medicare hospitalization records from 2005 to 2007. The study examines procedures and conditions ranging from heart valve-replacement surgery to heart attack and pneumonia.
Large gaps persist between the "best" and the "worst" hospitals across all procedures and diagnoses studied. Five star-rated hospitals had significantly lower risk-adjusted mortality across all three years studied.
The report is available at the Web site: healthgrades.com.
