Still, Premier and Kettering hospitals were among the bulk of the nearly 4,000 hospitals reviewed by CMS that earned four-star ratings in the tier just below the top.
Those hospitals included Premier’s Miami Valley Hospital and Atrium Medical Center. While Kettering’s Fort Hamilton Hospital, Grandview Medical Center, Kettering Medical Center and Sycamore Medical Center also received four stars.
The star ratings were based on patient feedback about their hospital experience, including the responsiveness of doctors and hospital staff, as well as more than 60 CMS quality measures, including hospital-acquired infection rates and emergency room wait times.
“These easy-to-understand star ratings are available online and empower people to compare and choose across various types of facilities from nursing homes to home health agencies,” Dr. Kate Goodrich, director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality at CMS, wrote in a blog post announcing the star ratings, which were posted to the Hospital Compare website.
Still, some hospitals and industry groups have criticized the methodology behind the CMS rating system for using data well over a year old in many cases and not controlling for geography and other factors, including whether a hospital is a teaching hospital used to train doctors or a safety net hospital, which often deal with pooer, sicker populations.
“Those factors certainly have an impact on care delivery,” said Teri Sholder , chief qualify officer for Kettering Health Network. “So while I do believe there is value in being transparent so consumers of health care can find high-quality care, I believe there are a lot of issues with the various ratings companies.”
Sholder said the dozens of ratings agencies, business publications and medical journals ranking hospitals can befuddle patients because they each use different standards for evaluating hospital data.
“With all of the different ratings, I think it generates confusion among consumers because there is not a consistent methodology behind how the measures are calculated,” she said.
Some hospitals weren’t even included in the CMS ratings because they did not meet minimum reporting requirements.
Dr. Tammy Lundstrom, chief medical officer for Premier Health, urged consumers to shop around and consult more than one ratings website before reaching any conclusions about a hospitals quality of care.
“There are a variety of websites for consumers to look at, and looking at a variety of different sites provides maybe a fuller picture of a hospital than any one site” Lundstrom said. “We look at a lot of data points in terms of assessing quality, and we’re always looking at what we can do improve the care we provide to patients.”
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