Hospital Selection Crucial for Women

A study of U.S. hospitals has found a large gap in women's health and maternity care between the best-performing and the poorest-performing hospitals, making a woman's selection of a hospital very important.

Specifically, the best-performing hospitals had a 39% lower mortality rate than the poorest-performing hospitals. For many cardiac procedures, the difference in mortality rates between those hospitals ranked in the top 15% and those ranked in the bottom 15% was dramatic. For example, the risk of mortality for women undergoing heart bypass surgery was 46.44% lower, on average, in the top-ranked hospitals, compared with the poorest-ranked hospitals.

Overall, the researchers found that the best-performing hospitals had an overall improvement rate of about 12.7% during the years 2001 through 2003, compared to an overall average improvement of only 5.7% among the poorest-performing hospitals. The greatest differences in women's cardiac and stroke outcomes between the best and poorest-performing hospitals were found in percutaneous coronary interventions, such as angioplasty and bypass surgery. Women treated at the best-performing hospitals had a 42.75%, 43.63%, and 46.44%, respectively, lower risk of mortality.

"Women must arm themselves with information to make informed decisions and seek out the high-quality hospitals in their areas,” advised study author Dr. Samantha Collier, vice president of medical affairs at HealthGrades (Golden, CO, USA). "Heart disease and stroke are the first and third leading causes of death among women, killing nearly one out of every two women and amounting to almost one death every minute. And yet, only a small percentage of women believe that cardiovascular disease is their biggest threat, and only one in five doctors knows that cardiovascular disease kills more women than men each year.”





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