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Medicare Rates Hospitals By Stars

By Pat Loeb

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Federal health officials have borrowed a tool from popular culture to help patients make decisions about hospitals. They're rating hospitals on a scale of one to five stars.

Think of it as "Trip Advisor" for the ill. Medicare is basing the star ratings on patient satisfaction surveys.

Martin Ciccocioppo of the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania said it is an incomplete way to judge hospitals.

"It's just one facet of information that's available about hospital services." Said Ciccocioppo, "It does not have a direct correlation to outcomes or the quality of care that's being delivered in the hospital."

Ciccocioppo praised the effort to simplify health decisions but says it will be more useful when it includes factors such as infection control, readmission rates and treatment processes."

"It should certainly not replace consultation with their physician with other provides and looking at other more objective measures of outcomes.

The star ratings are on the hospital compare website. Select a hospital and look in the tab marked "survey of patients' experiences." The star rating is at the top and the information used to calculate it follows.

In the Philadelphia area, just two small specialty hospitals received five stars.

Ciccopcioppo said there's no correlation between patient satisfaction and outcomes. In fact, he thinks, it might be the opposite.

"A hospital that has 300,500 beds, multiple campuses, lots of diverse patients, a lot of hand-offs in care, make it more difficult for the patient to have a quality ongoing relationship with a provider. There's more commotion, noise so some of the hospital ratings are driven by the size and setting of the hospital."

He noted hospitals in the Northeastern region, in general, fare worse than in the South or mid-West.
"Maybe we're just not as polite," he said.

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