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Your risk of death is more than 12 times higher if you go to a bottom 20% hospital in your area. However, 58% of Americans select a hospital based on driving distance rather than the quality of care. While location matters, choosing the right hospital can be a life-saving decision. Even hospitals staffed by top-tier surgeons can have poor outcomes if they don’t have high quality standards in place.
Imagine you’re able to schedule your joint replacement surgery with the best surgeon in the world. Let’s say this surgeon performs your replacement flawlessly. While this may sound ideal, you could still contract an infection. Perhaps a nurse recorded your medical history inaccurately, a physician’s assistant neglected proper cleaning procedures, or a doctor missed the symptoms of a Staph infection. That’s why the quality of the hospital is as important as the quality of the surgeon.
Of course, it would be unreasonable to assess every quality procedure at various hospitals. In general, you can compare hospitals based on these key safety measures:
The likelihood of surgical complications or post-surgery infection.
The rate of patient falls or other injuries during a hospital stay.
Patient mortality rates by condition (e.g., stroke, pneumonia) or procedure (e.g., coronary artery bypass graft surgeries, hip replacement).
Understanding Hospital Quality Control Measures
One of the simplest examples of quality control is handwashing compliance. Unclean hands are a primary source of hospital-acquired infections. Alarmingly, national studies show that practitioners wash their hands nearly half as often as necessary. The majority of American hospitals do not adequately monitor compliance or hold providers accountable when inadequate hand hygiene leads to infections. Studies show that a 48% handwashing compliance rate translates to a 17% chance of a hospital-acquired infection. When you compare this to an equivalent hospital with a 66% compliance rate, the complication rate drops to 10%.
Up to 1 million patients fall in U.S. hospitals each year, which can lead to significant fractures, cuts, or internal bleeding. The safest hospitals use a 6-factor scale to calculate each patient’s risk of falling, like medications that might cause lower limb weakness. Nurses can then help prevent falls by implementing appropriate interventions, and educating patients and their families on fall prevention strategies. It is crucial for nurses to remain vigilant and take proactive measures to minimize the risk of falls in healthcare settings.
Evaluating Infection Rates
Secondary infections are those that occur during a patient’s hospital stay but were not the reason for their admission. Oftentimes, these result from poor monitoring or cleaning of a wound or surgical site. Some of the most common include:
Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs): These often occur when a providers overuse urinary catheters during a hospital stay.
Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs): These infections occur when a central line is placed in a large vein to deliver treatment or to collect blood for testing.
Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP): This can occur when a patient on a ventilator for breathing assistance develops pneumonia.
Surgical site infections (SSIs): Any infections that occur after surgery in the part of the body where the surgery was done.
Clostridium difficile (C. diff): This bacterial infection can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon and typically occurs after the use of antibiotic medications.
On average, patients travel just over 3 miles beyond their nearest hospital for medical treatment. Reducing your risk of post-surgery complications, shortening recovery time, and lowering the chance of hospital readmission are worth the travel.
How does the hospital quality affect healthcare providers?
High-quality hospitals typically provide better resources, including up-to-date medical equipment, adequate staffing, and supportive administrative policies. This can lead to increased job satisfaction among healthcare providers by reducing burnout and improving their ability to deliver high-quality care.
Conversely, low-quality hospitals often face issues like insufficient staffing, outdated equipment, and poor administrative support, contributing to higher stress levels, job dissatisfaction, and burnout among healthcare providers (NBER).
Hospitals with a focus on quality often invest in ongoing training and professional development for their staff, leading to higher retention rates. Providers are more likely to stay at institutions where they feel their skills are being enhanced and their career growth is supported.
Is there any major difference in outcomes between for profit hospitals and nonprofit hospitals?
While nonprofit hospitals sound more noble, they do not necessarily promise higher quality care or a stronger commitment to patient wellness. As outlined recently in a Washington Post article, some nonprofit hospitals have ownership in for-profit insurers, for-profit hospitals, and even a venture capital company. With this in mind, it may not surprise you that there is no significant difference in quality of care between these categories; in fact, hospitals that converted to for-profit had a slight increase in certain quality metrics.
This misconception stems from a misunderstanding of how nonprofit hospitals function. The distinction simply indicates that there are no owners or stockholders of the hospital who directly profit from the net income. The CEO of a nonprofit hospital still earns an average of $660,000 per year, with the executives of the largest nonprofit hospitals like Cedars Sinai earning over $6 million a year.
Schedule your procedure with the knowledge you need to protect yourself from medical errors. Click to Compare Hospitals.