The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) begin posting broad comparisons of hospital mortality rates for heart attack and heart failure to its hospital compare Web site (hospitalcompare.hhs.gov) next June.
An interesting article in USAToday asks ‘Does where you live determine if you’ll live?‘. The article cites a report published in the journal Health Affairs in January, where the authors Krumholz and his co-workers calculated that if every hospital in the USA were able to achieve the same level of performance as the top 25%, nearly 10,000 lives could be saved each year. He says the study adds to evidence that “where you’re taken can have as powerful an impact on whether you survive as whether you get important medications.”