More than 123.8 million people in the United States will be admitted to the emergency departments of hospitals in their community, and 13% of these patients will end up being admitted into the hospital. When choice is possible, knowing the best hospital ahead of time can mean the difference between life and death for patients.
Like many aspects of healthcare, a notable transformation has occurred in the way consumers select providers and places to access care. Consumers are now selecting hospitals based on their quality and performance across a wide range of health service areas, including emergency medicine. HealthGrades has found there are clear differences in outcomes for an emergency visit requiring hospital admission among hospitals.
For the last four years, HealthGrades assessed Medicare data to analyze quality outcomes of patients admitted to the hospital through the emergency department for 12 life-threatening conditions.
For these common conditions leading to hospitalization among Medicare recipients, these best-performing hospitals have combined risk-adjusted mortality rates low enough to place them among the top 5% of hospitals in the United States. These 263 top-performing hospitals are designated as 2012 HealthGrades Emergency Medicine Excellence Award™ recipients.
Key findings from the report include:
For the group of patients studied, Emergency Medicine Excellence hospitals had, on average, 41.52% lower risk-adjusted mortality than all other hospitals across the 12 diagnoses studied.
If all hospitals performed at the level of the Emergency Medicine Excellence hospitals from 2008 through 2010, an additional 170,856 people could have potentially survived their emergency hospitalization.
Contact a HealthGrades professional today to learn more about the HealthGrades Emergency Medicine Excellence Award and how to leverage it in marketing, business development and physician relations efforts.
Use of the HealthGrades' name, logo, award name(s) or quality achievement(s) may not be used without written permission from Health Grades, Inc.
