See how your hospital ranks

January

Lots of organizations and agencies are rating hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare facilities. “Health Grades”:http://www.healthgrades.com/ has just released its top hospital list for 2008-2009 and is making that information available free on its Web site.

Unfortunately for New Yorkers, no hospital in the state made the top 50 list. The closest to the Lower Hudson Valley was Hackensack Medical Center in Bergen County, N.J.

The listing gives stars for quality of care for conditions ranging from appendectomy to valve replacement surgery and lots of things in between.

In the rankings, both of Rockland’s hospital, Nyack and Good Samaritan, earn five-stars for maternity care. In Westchester, the top maternity ranking went to St. John’s Riverside in Yonkers, Yonkers Hospital, White Plains Hospital and Sound Shore in New Rochelle. Westchester Medical Center got the lowest ranking for maternity care.

Take a look through the report and you might find some interesting information. Or not. I recently attended a seminar about health rankings, where one speaker summed the various reports up like this: Garbage in, garbage out.

So take this information with a grain of salt.

Rockland hospitals are, inexplicably, listed in the Monticello-Newburgh area. Westchester hospitals have their own heading and Putnam Hospital is listed in the Dutchess and Putnam County area.

The hospital rankings from Health Grades are free if you click where it says Research Hospital, but there is a charge for information on doctors. Much of the same physician information can be obtained free of charge from the “New York State Department of Health”:http://www.nydoctorprofile.com/ physician profile.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 11:18 am by Jane Lerner. Print This Post | Email This Post

5 Responses to “See how your hospital ranks”

ConcernedCitizen January 27th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Too many foreigners work in the hospitals here. They don’t understand nor have they ever understood normal cleanliness and sanitation.
Jane Lerner January 27th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Brilliant observation. If you’re ever in a hospital suffering from a heart attack and a team of foreign-born doctors is trying to save your life, why don’t you share you thoughts with them?

Jane Lerner
ConcernedCitizen January 27th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
To Jane—Patients can’t share their thoughts with staff who don’t speak or understand English.

I don’t know why you are making excuses for staff who don’t function up to the cleanliness standards patients expect and standards achieves in hospitals elsewhere in the Unite States.
Heather January 27th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Dead on, Citizen. I’ve lost 5 family members to completely preventable accidents and infections in Good Sam because of that very reason.
Jack March 5th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I rarely comment on blogs but yours I had to stop and say Great Blog!!

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