Death Rate Measure Used to Judge Hospital Quality May Be Misleading

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120103135500.htm

ScienceDaily (Jan. 3, 2012) — Hospitals, health insurers and patients often rely on patient death rates in hospitals to compare hospital quality. Now a new study by researchers at Yale School of Medicine questions the accuracy of that widely used approach and supports measuring patient deaths over a period of 30 days from admission even after they have left the hospital.

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Drye and her colleagues found that quality at many U.S. hospitals looked quite different using the two different accounting methods.

The team also found that measures looking only at deaths in the hospital favor hospitals that keep their patients for a shorter length of time.

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