Jenny Gold, Kaiser Health News
CHICAGO — For two years, Saint Anthony Hospital right here has celebrated its top-rated “A” grade from the nationwide Leapfrog Group that evaluates hospital security data. But this fall, when executives opened a preview of their rating, they received an unwelcome shock: a “C.”
Hospitals take their scores significantly, regardless of hospital trade consultants’ skepticism about their scientific methodology and research exhibiting that scores might not have an enormous affect on affected person habits. In a extremely aggressive market, nobody desires to be a “C”-rated security hospital any greater than a “C”-rated restaurant for cleanliness.
So, the hospital didn’t take its new grade sitting down. It sued the scores group for defamation, alleging that the grade was based mostly on knowledge that Leapfrog knew to be inaccurate.
“If Leapfrog publishes a ‘C’ grade for Saint Anthony as part of its Fall 2017 Hospital Survey Grades, it will erase years of improvements at the hospital and irreparably degrade the public perception of the hospital,” in accordance with the complaint, which was filed within the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill. “Saint Anthony competes with other hospitals in the immediate area, including one down the street, and one of the most important ways Saint Anthony recently has been able to distinguish itself is the high safety grades it receives from Leapfrog.”
In a response filed to the courtroom on Tuesday, Leapfrog referred to as Saint Anthony’s lawsuit an “eleventh hour gambit to turn back the clock on a disappointing safety grade based in part on the data that [the hospital] itself provided and certified, and which Leapfrog simply used in accordance with its long-established processes.”
Leapfrog is one in all numerous organizations, together with U.S. News and World Report, Healthgrades and Consumer Reports, that rating hospitals based mostly on whether or not they meet sure high quality measures. Based in Washington, D.C., Leapfrog’s scores are a mixture of 27 measures of high quality from authorities knowledge and an impartial survey to judge issues like infections, deaths amongst surgical sufferers and the way nicely docs talk.
About 50 % of hospitals take part in Leapfrog’s survey; the others are evaluated based mostly solely on publicly obtainable knowledge. Leapfrog’s mission is to assist hospitals enhance in weak areas and to provide sufferers helpful info.
Hospitals are fast to tout good grades on promoting and banners.
Saint Anthony’s grievance seems to be the primary time a hospital has sued a score company over a contested grade. But in an period when hospitals are manufacturers and sufferers are clients hoping to make rational purchases for care, such grades and score methods are more likely to face extra scrutiny and new pushback.
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“In highly competitive markets, hospitals are likely to see poor grades as a challenge, and I think many will be tempted to sue the rating agencies,” mentioned Ashish Jha, a professor on the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Jha, who was on a committee that helped set requirements when Leapfrog was established, mentioned he was heartened that hospitals are reacting to knowledge, regardless of the impetus. “If they’re going to use that as motivation to get better, that’s perfect,” he mentioned. “As a patient, you don’t care why a hospital is investing in safety, you just care that they are.”
It is unclear to what extent grades affect affected person choices. A Pew Research Center survey from 2012, for instance, discovered that solely 14 % of web customers consulted on-line rankings or critiques of hospitals or medical services.
But Saint Anthony hospital executives insist Leapfrog’s rating has an infinite impact on their backside line. “We have seen, for better or worse, that people are paying a great deal of attention — not only our patients but also our stakeholders, vendors and politicians,” mentioned Dr. Eden Takhsh, the hospital’s chief high quality officer. Such scores have additionally influenced them to deal with enhancing sure high quality metrics, corresponding to charges of sepsis and central line infections.
Leapfrog’s scores are plastered throughout each newspaper on the town, he mentioned. Based on their previous “A” grades, Takhsh mentioned, Saint Anthony has been approached by each the University of Chicago and Northwestern, two a lot bigger educating hospitals in Chicago, to type partnerships in pediatrics and neurology. Both hospitals provided to ship their physicians to Saint Anthony to supply subspecialty care, which would supply the small neighborhood hospital with extra sufferers and status.
A “C” grade might threaten these partnerships. “These organizations don’t want to partner with someone with low quality because it hurts them,” mentioned Takhsh.
Dr. Karl Bilimoria, a professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, mentioned it’s unclear whether or not scores should have a lot affect. “These ratings systems are overall not very good,” he mentioned. “Most of them use data that are generated for billing, so they’re not particularly accurate.”
Major scores methods “frequently conflict,” as a result of they use totally different standards, he mentioned: “A hospital can be rated best on one of them and be rated poorly on another.” Saint Anthony, for instance, was rated three out of 5 stars on Medicare’s Hospital Compare web site throughout the identical interval that it obtained an “A” from Leapfrog. The hospital was not included in U.S. News and World Report’s prime 22 hospitals in Chicago.
Hospitals can select to promote the score that makes them look finest. Patients could also be impressed by a hospital’s “Top Hospital” banner however by no means see the decrease scores.
Some scores teams cost for the show. Leapfrog costs $5,500-$17,600 for a hospital to make use of its emblem in promoting, relying on the hospital’s measurement. Others, corresponding to U.S. News and World Report’s “Best Hospitals” program, additionally levies a price, however Consumer Reports doesn’t.
The scores methods differ extensively on how they compile their scores, and a few are extra targeted on the standard of care than others. “Leapfrog is the best and the only publicly reported rating focused exclusively on safety. It was developed by top experts and uses the very best publicly available data,” mentioned Leapfrog CEO and President Leah Binder. “Our reviews are scrupulous.”
Saint Anthony’s lawsuit hinges on the query of how its physicians order medicines, which Saint Anthony believes was the principal purpose for his or her decrease grade. The grade was improper, the hospital claims, as a result of it’s based mostly on an inaccurate evaluation that physicians prescribed medicines electronically solely 50 to 74 % of the time. Saint Anthony maintains that its physicians actually prescribe electronically 95 % of the time. The hospital contacted Leapfrog a number of occasions to repair the error, in accordance with the lawsuit, however Leapfrog declined.
Leapfrog has eliminated Saint Anthony’s grade for now, however will seemingly repost it pending additional investigation, noting that the digital ordering situation was unlikely to totally clarify the “C” grade. “There’s clearly some very poor and sloppy reporting from this hospital,” mentioned Binder.
Dr. Karen Joynt Maddox, an assistant professor on the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, mentioned that the dispute underlines the weaknesses of the scores info obtainable to sufferers. “This whole field is way behind where it needs to be,” particularly given the proliferation of “consumer-driven” high-deductible plans, she mentioned, including: “there’s a vacuum in terms of consumer-friendly information.”
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nationwide well being coverage information service. It is an editorially impartial program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which isn’t affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
