Hospital Quality Guide Methodology 2007 - 2008 8
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May not be reprinted or reproduced without permission from Health Grades, Inc.
Overall Patient Safety Score
To be eligible for an overall patient safety score, a hospital must have had outcomes in 11 of the 13 patient
safety indicators. Hospitals with 10 or fewer patient safety ratings were not eligible to receive an overall
patient safety score, but may have individual patient safety indicator ratings.
To determine the overall patient safety score by hospital, HealthGrades performed the following steps.
1.
HealthGrades statistically compares the actual rates of individual patient safety events to the predicted
rate to produce a score for each individual patient safety indicator that had a sufficient volume at a
hospital.
2.
The average of the resulting scores determines a hospital's ranking. Star ratings are then assigned as
follows:
Best (Top 15%)
As Expected (Middle 70%)
Poor (Bottom 15%)
·
When a hospital is rated Best in Patient Safety, it means that their patient safety record is better
than expected given their patient population and they scored within the top 15 percent of hospitals
that qualify for a patient safety rating.
·
When a hospital is rated As Expected, their patient safety record is as expected given their patient
population and they scored within the middle 70 percent of hospitals that qualify for a patient safety
rating.
·
When a hospital is rated Poor, their patient safety record is worse than expected and they rated
within the bottom 15 percent of all hospitals that qualify for a patient safety rating.
·
When a hospital is not rated, it means the hospital had too few cases to be eligible to receive a
patient safety scoring.
