Health Grades Hospital Report Card Maternity Womens Health 20072008 Page 1
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May not be reprinted or reproduced without permission from Health Grades, Inc.
Hospital Report CardsTM
Maternity Care and Women's Health 2007-2008
Methodology White Paper
(2003 2005 Data)
Introduction
To help consumers evaluate and compare hospital performance in maternity care and women's health,
HealthGrades analyzed patient outcome data for virtually every hospital in 19 states. The state data
contained inpatient records for all patients. The HealthGrades ratings are available on the Internet at
www.healthgrades.com
.
Data Acquisition
HealthGrades purchased the initial patient-level data from each individual state. The data represent three
years of discharges. These data were chosen because they represent all discharges for the associated
states. The 19 states evaluated were as follows:
·
Arizona
·
North Carolina
·
California
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Pennsylvania
·
Florida
·
Oregon
·
Iowa
·
Rhode Island
·
Maine
·
Texas
·
Maryland
·
Utah
·
Massachusetts
·
Virginia
·
Nevada
·
Washington
·
New Jersey
·
Wisconsin
·
New York
Data for newborn intensive care unit (NICU) status were gathered from each state agency responsible for
licensing oversight of hospitals. Where state agency data could not be obtained, HealthGrades contacted
each hospital in the state to obtain information on newborn ICU status. Where state agency data were
missing NICU status for hospitals having patient discharge data, HealthGrades contacted these hospitals to
obtain information on newborn ICU status.
