The September 2013 edition of Consumer Reports magazine has a lot of interesting articles, but as someone who works in the healthcare education industry , I was most interested in the story “Your safer-surgery survival guide: Our Ratings of 2,463 U.S. hospitals can help you find the right one.” Now, I don’t want to jinx anything by writing this blog, so I’ll knock on wood when I say that if I have to have surgery any time soon, I’ll definitely want to go to one of the Top 10 hospitals that were identified in the story, or that if I have to relocate, I’ll seriously consider Colorado Springs since they have two hospitals ranked in the Top 10.
According to the full story Consumer Reports “wanted to see which hospitals did well across a broad range of surgeries. So [the magazine’s team] looked first at hospitals that got [the] highest overall surgery Rating, then narrowed [the list] down to those that regularly did at least 10 kinds of surgeries and got a high rating in at least 30 percent of those, without earning a low rating for any surgery.” The results have been summarized online, and I found them to be a little bit surprising. For example, one of the more famous hospitals, The Mayo Clinic in Austin, MN, which is a smaller satellite of the main campus in Rochester, had a low rating, and overall, it was found that “Well-known hospitals don’t always live up to their reputations” as shown by the surgery ratings Consumer Reports measured. I also thought it was interesting that the ratings found that “on average teaching hospitals performed no better than other hospitals.” However I was not surprised by the finding that “Specialty hospitals tended to do better,” but that was based purely upon the level of care I’ve personally witnessed when family members were at one of the local specialty hospitals in Oklahoma City.
Now I’m not writing this to advocate using hospitals ranked highly by Consumer Reports above those that were ranked lower in the same survey. I merely wanted to extend a virtual hug and pat on the back for a job well done, and send my congratulations to the Top 10 hospitals, which are listed below in ABC order:
- Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland
- Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio
- Enloe Medical Center in Chico, California
- Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland
- Memorial Health System in Colorado Springs, Colorado
- Oklahoma Heart Hospital in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Penrose-St. Francis Health Services in Colorado Springs, Colorado
- Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California
- Trinity Rock Island in Rock Island, Illinois
- Yavapai Regional Medical Center in Prescott, Arizona
I hope you’ll join me in congratulating all of the outstanding nurses, physicians, healthcare professionals, staff, and administrators who work at these institutions. If you’re looking for a job at these fine institutions or at another great hospital, check out “Nursing in a Social Media World” in our archived blog entries before you hit the “send” button on your application. I’d also recommend that nursing students and/or anyone who hasn’t searched for a job in a while read our two-part blog: “Preparing New Graduate Nurses for the New Job Part 1” and “Part 2.” As always, don’t forget to comment here, or email your local Kaplan representative if you have any words of wisdom to share or suggestions for future blogs you’d like to see us write!
