Health Grades Hospital Report Card Maternity Womens Health 2005 Page 1
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Hospital Report CardsTM
Maternity Care and Women's Health 2005
Methodology White Paper
(2001 2003 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 17 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 17 states were as follows:
·
Arizona
·
New York
·
California
·
North Carolina
·
Florida
·
Pennsylvania
·
Iowa
·
Texas
·
Maine
·
Utah
·
Maryland
·
Virginia
·
Massachusetts
·
Washington
·
Nevada
·
Wisconsin
·
New Jersey
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.
