Reviewing patient satisfaction results that CMS posts on its Hospital Compare Web site, U.S. News reported that most institutions ranked as Best Hospitals were at "the upper end" for all hospitals, but none of the hospitals on U.S. News' Honor Roll were among the 17 hospitals with the highest patient satisfaction scores on its Best Hospitals list.
The reason, U.S. News stated, is that most of its listed hospitals are teaching hospitals caring for high-acuity patients, "and kid-glove treatment tends to take second place to medical quality."
U.S. News, which relies on physicians' opinions for one-third of its ranking methodology, said it would not incorporate patient satisfaction scores into its methodology "for the foreseeable future," and listed several specific reasons why:
- Various studies, most recently one in the October 2008 New England Journal of Medicine, could not find a significant relationship between patient satisfaction and quality of clinical care.
- ASCs and surgery hospitals, which had some of the highest patient satisfaction ratings in Hospital Compare, shouldn't be compared with full-service hospitals that have high-acuity cases with longer stays.
- Hospital Compare results are often based on thin survey response rates, as low as 6 percent of all patients contacted.
Read U.S. News' article on hospital patient satisfaction.