WTVM.com and WTVM News Leader 9, Columbus, GA | Compare Hospital Care

Compare Hospital Care

By Barbara Gauthier - bio | e-mail

COLUMBUS, GA (WTVM) -   It is perhaps one of the biggest decisions we face --- choosing the people and services that truly can mean the difference between life and death.

Many base their choice on referrals from family and friends, or they simply go to the doctor their parents went to.

But in this age of information many others are turning to the internet as another source of advice.

24 year-old Kimberly Porter considers herself an educated consumer. The Columbus personal banker does her homework before making major decision like healthcare.

"We should expect the best and we should kind of know what we're getting into," says Porter.

But are we getting the best from valley area medical facilities?

It's difficult to get a true side by side hospital comparison because of variables like size, specialty and even types of conditions treated.

But the Georgia Hospital Association says the website, hospitalcompare.hhs.gov, is a good place to start. The site was created by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. It gives a realistic snapshot of how hospitals perform when compared on a local, state and national level.

"It basically answers the question how well does my hospital adhere to accepted standards of care, standards of care that are proven if they adhere to them they're going to get better outcomes," says Kevin Bloye with the Georgia Hospital Association.

When you log onto hospitalcompare.hhs.gov you can put in your zip code, city or county and compare hospitals within a certain mile radius. We looked at the eight medical facilities within fifty miles of Columbus. That includes: Columbus Regional Medical Center, Doctors, St. Francis, Hughston, Summit, GH Lanier, East Alabama Medical Center and West Georgia Medical Center.

Overall, hospitals in the Columbus area performed at or above state and national averages in the majority of categories when it comes to administering specified standards of care.

For instance,  the site tells you what percentage of surgery patients were given preventative antibiotics an hour before incision. Doctors, The Medical Center and St. Francis all scored above the national average of 84%. The Medical Center had the highest rate of 92% and St Francis scored 91%.

East Alabama Medical Center was rated top notch in this category too scoring 97%, while Summit fell well below the national average at 70%.

In the treatment of heart attack patients, East Alabama again scored high marks -100% of the time giving patients an aspirin upon arrival and discharge from the hospital.

Columbus Regional Medical Center also got a perfect 100% and St. Francis was not far behind at 98%.

"We take this information very seriously and when we find areas that we're not doing well we try to improve. Our goal is to get better and better with each one of these elements," said the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President at Columbus Regional Healthcare, Dr. Andrew Morley.

The area that may be of biggest to concern to you is mortality rate. The website looks at how many patients died within 30 days of being treated for heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia.

Even though Opelika's East Alabama Medical Center rated high in standards of care, it scored worse than the national average in the number of patients who died after being treated for pneumonia.

The hospital's rate was 16.5% compared to 11.4% nationwide.

Similar story for St. Francis Hospital, their mortality rate for pneumonia patients was the highest locally at 18.1%.  Hospital officials caution that the numbers don't always tell the whole story.

Deborah Saylor, Vice President of Patient Services at St. Francis says "Many patients come to St. Francis from nursing homes. We also tend to treat an older population and many of these patients and their families decided they did not want to be resuscitated; they didn't want to have heroic measures put in place. Well it doesn't matter when the data is compiled that doesn't change in the report."

When it comes to death rates for patients treated for heart failure, only West Georgia Medical Center in LaGrange rated worse than the national average at 15.1%

While many in the medical community are cautious about these types of sites and how people interpret the data, most agree this kind of accountability is a good thing for both hospitals and patients.

For more information click on the attached link to hospitalcompare.hhs.gov. The Georgia Hospital Association also recommends their website - gha.org, and healthgrades.com for people who want to learn more about hospitals and healthcare in their area.