Hospital Rankings Redux: Scorecards Scored

January 12th, 2015

More than a year ago, annoyed with the proliferation of often contradictory hospital scorecards and lists, I wrote a blog post called “Who Ranks the Rankings?”

Now, I have an answer, apparently – The Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS).

This week, HANYS came out with its “Report on Report Cards,” which, according to Jordan Rau at Kaiser Health News, “used nine criteria to assess report cards issued by government or private organizations. These principles included whether the report card used measures grounded in scientific evidence, whether the data were recent and whether hospitals had a chance to review the findings before publication to pinpoint errors.”

I have no opinion – and, honestly, no real idea – about whether HANYS’s rankings are fair or accurate, but it makes me happy that someone did something like this, if only because it helps call attention to the fact that healthcare consumers are drowning in data they aren’t necessarily equipped to interpret.

As my colleague Jill Drachenberg asked just a few months ago on this blog, “Will the constant flow of new safety scores and data tools help make data and costs more transparent? Or will it all just make patients more confused when trying to make informed healthcare decisions?”

Personally, my hope is for Hospital Compare to really get its act together and be the sort of one-stop shop for easy-to-understanding information that I really think it was intended to be. At the moment, however, CMS has its hands full fixing some other website you might have heard about.