To find the best hospitals, data needs to be publicly available

Feb 2, 2010 9:53 AM

My mother used to say you don’t know what worry means until you have a child. One dreary day in 1999 my husband and I learned how right Mom was when we had to hospitalize our infant for "minor" surgery, and the anxiety was unlike anything we’d ever suffered. Of course we worried about the big hazards, like a surgery mishap. But we also worried about the smaller mistakes like a nurse forgetting to wash his hands or the anesthesiologist miscalculating the dose.

Unfortunately, we weren’t just paranoid new parents. Not only are mistakes like these commonplace, they’re much more likely in some hospitals than others. And if you choose a hospital that performs poorly, you put yourself at much higher risk. We had no way of knowing whether we picked a hospital prone to such mistakes or not. Nationally, hospitals are still not mandated to make this information public.

Two years ago, I began working with the Leapfrog Group, an organization of employers and large purchasers of employee health benefits. Leapfrog fights for the public to get the information we need to be able to pick the best hospital by knowing their infection and medical error rates. Our affiliates across the country directly approach hospitals and ask them to report safety information to Leapfrog—and more than 1,200 hospitals have submitted data that consumers won’t find anywhere else.

Now Leapfrog has partnered with Consumer Reports Health to unveil a new set of data on hospital-acquired infections introduced through the large intravenous catheters that deliver medication, nutrition, and fluids to patients in intensive care. These so-called central-line infections account for 15 percent of all hospital infections but are responsible for at least 30 percent of the 99,000 annual hospital-infection-related deaths, according to the best estimates available.

This deadly and costly hospital-acquired infection can be eliminated if hospitals make it a priority. In fact, more than 100 large hospitals have reported success in reducing their infections to zero. We applaud them. Many hospitals choose to report to Leapfrog because they see public reporting as a responsibility to their community and their patients. Indeed, studies show that the hospitals that report to Leapfrog perform better than hospitals that do not. But other hospitals decline to report altogether.

I’m pleased to say our son is now a happy and healthy 11-year-old, but we still shudder to think of the day we handed him over to those strangers with white coats and stethoscopes. Would we pick the same hospital for his surgery if we had it all to do over again today? Sadly, no. The hospital, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City, has never agreed to report its data to Leapfrog. (We do know its ICU bloodstream infection rate—14 percent worse than average for its mix of ICUs—only because New York has a state law that requires all hospitals to report it). Perhaps hospital officials are bothered by the time it takes to fill out the survey, perhaps they don’t think patients really deserve the information, or perhaps their safety record is an embarrassment. Whatever the reason, the hospital hasn’t yet earned the trust of its patients. Next time I need a hospital, I’ll find one that has.

—Leah Binder, guest blogger and CEO, The Leapfrog Group

You can help prevent hospital infections. Take a look at our patient-safety checklist and watch our how-to video (above) on choosing a good hospital.