Comparing Consumer-Directed Hospital Rankings With STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database Outcomes

US News & World Report Hospital Ratings on Radical Prostatectomy

“…For instance, annual changes in cardiac bypass hospital ratings were not replicable using validated clinical outcomes from a nationwide registry. 1 Nonetheless, patients and hospital executives remain fixated on US News & World Report (USNWR) hospital ratings, which is, to our knowledge, the most popular hospital rating system; changes in US-NWR ratings are associated with a 5% average year-toyear shift in nonemergency Medicare patient volume. 2 As a result, the sizable influence of USNWR ratings warrants closer scrutiny.…”

“…However, unlike car and electronics ratings, health care quality is difficult to measure, is biased by “reputation,” and may be considerably disconnected from true patient values. For instance, annual changes in cardiac bypass hospital ratings were not replicable using validated clinical outcomes from a nationwide registry . Nonetheless, patients and hospital executives remain fixated on US News & World Report (USNWR) hospital ratings, which is, to our knowledge, the most popular hospital rating system; changes in USNWR ratings are associated with a 5% average year-to-year shift in nonemergency Medicare patient volume .…”

Quality improvement initiative to increase radial artery usage as a second arterial conduit in coronary artery bypass grafting

“…Owing to the body of evidence-driven outcomes and its high patency, the internal mammary artery (IMA), most commonly the left (left IMA), is used as the graft conduit to the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery [ 2 ]. The saphenous vein is the most common second graft choice, with graft failure rates ranging from 10% to 30% within the first year after CABG and an additional 5% each subsequent year after surgery [ 3–5 ]. Notably, half of the patients who receive a vein graft will experience graft failure at 10 years post-CABG [ 6 ].…”