Top Hospitals Aren't Always Best For Surgeries

Consumer Reports has now announced ratings for hospitals based on whether patients survived a surgery at the hospital. The list gives an idea about which hospitals offer good healthcare. Surprisingly, the list has only few "top hospitals".

The report by the agency was based on analysis of government data on nearly 2,500 hospitals in 50 states. Researchers found that hospitals located in busy urban areas that care for the sickest and the poorest often provided the best healthcare in the industry.

Researchers looked at percent of Medicare patients that stayed in the hospital. The ratings were determined on the basis of surgery result and post-operative stay.

"Consumers have very little to go on when trying to select a hospital for surgery, not knowing which ones do a good job at keeping surgery patients safe and which ones don't," said Lisa McGiffert, director of Consumers Union's Safe Patient Project in a news release. "They might as well just throw a scalpel at a dartboard."

Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston -associated with Harvard Medical School along with MedStar Washington Hospital Center and Sibley Memorial Hospital got a poor rating while the prestigious Johns Hopkins Hospital received an average rating on the list.

Top scorers were Greater Baltimore Medical Center, Mount Sinai and NYU Langone Medical Center in New York, Nebraska Heart Hospital in Lincoln and Abilene Regional Medical Center in Texas, Nbc news reported.

"One of the concerns is they measured these complications using administrative data, which is completely understandable, but we know it's not completely accurate," Dr. Peter Pronovost, senior vice president for patient safety and quality at Johns Hopkins told Nbc news.

Consumer Reports will add the hospital rating on to its subscription-only website.