Earlier this week, US News and World Report published its most recent ratings of hospitals nationally. And my hospital made the top ten list - twice! Huntington Hospital in Huntington, NY, a member of the North Shore LIJ Health System, was ranked 9th in the metro-tristate area and an impressive 7th among all hospitals in NY State. And as number 1 though 6 were large university medical centers, I can say accurately, and with much pride, that we were the top-ranked community hospital in the state.
Which raises the question, what does it mean to be a "better" hospital? The answer is as hard as "what makes a better university"? Or a better community? US News looks at a range of data, from nursing ratios to medical equipment, complication rates to patient satisfaction, and importantly, "survival" - or what we call the "risk-adjusted mortality index."
One concept that fascinates me is standardization in healthcare. Quality gurus from the halls of industry have migrated to healthcare to spread a religion that makes holy war on "variation." Variation causes inefficiency and errors, and is to be suppressed. This is not so odd as it at first seems. If three patients in the ER are being admitted with the same kind of pneumonia, why should they receive three different drug regimens, just because their various physicians were "trained that way." Surely this drives up cost (while driving harried nurses up the wall).
And even more important, with all these differing orders to keep straight, this kind of random variation taxes our limited resources, slows down care and even increases the likelihood of an error. So you can keep your doctors' prerogative and your "autonomy." Pass the standard order set, and if it works for my patient, I'll sign it.
But can we embrace standard protocols while also paying close attention to each patient as a unique individual? Whose illness experience is her own? Can we adopt an industrial model of patient "throughput" while also making certain that NO one refers to the kidney infection in Bay 6? This is Medicine's other great challenge. And if it's me in the hospital bed, I hope my team can be scientific, a little OCD, and possessed of hold-my-hand warmth and connection, all at the same time. That's a great hospital.
Welcome to SECOND OPINION. Visit us if you are interested in the world of healthcare quality and the hard work of eliminating harm from our healthcare system. We'll talk about Pediatric healthcare (my first love) and surprising and innovative efforts from many quarters to reinfuse Medicine with the kind of Humanism and patient-centeredness that are the enduring legacy of our profession. My aim is to be relevant, practical, philosophical, occasionally outrageous but always worth the read!
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