Hospital Quality Guide Methodology 2006 8
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How HealthGrades Rates Hospitals: Women's Health
The Women's Health service area rating is based upon two medical issues: Maternity Care and
Cardiac/Stroke mortality outcomes for women. Hospitals had to have an overall rating from each area to be
considered. Maternity Care ratings are based on four factors related to deliveries and newborn care. For
cardiac and stroke mortality for women, HealthGrades analyzes the following for female patients:
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Coronary bypass surgery
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Valve replacement surgery
·
Interventional procedures (PTCA/angioplasty, stent, atherectomy)
·
Heart attack
·
Heart failure
·
Stroke
To be included in a rating, a hospital must have had at least 30 cases in each of five medical issues (out of
the possible six), and they must have had at least five cases during 2003 in five out of six medical issues.
Also, hospitals that transferred more than 14.3 percent of their stroke patients were excluded.
The Maternity Care percentile score is added to the Cardiac/Stroke percentile score to create a Women's
Health score for each hospital. Hospitals are sorted with star ratings assigned in three tier levels.
The following star rating system is applied to the Women's Health score:
Best Top 15% of all hospitals within 17 states
As Expected Middle 70% of all hospitals within 17 states
Poor Bottom 15% of all hospitals within 17 states
Patient Safety
To help consumers evaluate and compare hospital performance, HealthGrades analyzes patient data for
virtually every hospital in the country to determine patient safety outcomes.
HealthGrades uses Medicare inpatient data from the MedPAR database (purchased from the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services; 2001 2003 data) and Patient Safety Indicator software (Version 2.1,
Revision 3a) from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to analyze the following 13
patient safety indicators (PSI):
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Prevention of death in procedures where mortality is usually very low
·
Lack of pressure sores or bed sores acquired in the hospital
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Ability to diagnose and treat in time
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Absence of foreign body left in during procedure
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Avoidance of collapsed lung due to a procedure or surgery in or around the chest
·
Lack of infections acquired at the hospital
·
Absence of hip fracture after surgery
·
Avoidance of excessive bruising or bleeding as a consequence of a procedure or surgery
