PROFESSIONAL ISSUES

Testing the U.S. News rankings

Quick View. Oct. 1, 2007.

Do the quality metrics of the U.S. News & World Report's annual ranking of "America's Best Hospitals" truly capture who is doing the best job as opposed to who has the best reputation?

Researchers compared mortality rates for heart-attack patients at the 50 hospitals U.S. News ranked as the best in heart care with more than 3,800 nonranked hospitals. The results were mixed. Overall, the U.S. News-ranked hospitals showed a 14.4% average 30-day mortality rate, compared with 18% for the non ranked hospitals. But a closer look finds that while the vast majority of the magazine ranked hospitals placed in the quartile with the lowest mortality rate, 30% of them were middling to poor. Moreover, nearly 1,000 nonranked hospitals also placed in the lowest-mortality-rate quartile.

Note Percentages for non-ranked hospitals do not equal 100% due to rounding

This information and the accompanying full-text visual aids were drawn from the following source:

"America's Best Hospitals' in the Treatment of Acute Myocardial Infarction," Archives of Internal Medicine, July 9.

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