Hospital Death Rates

[cindy.wellman]

Earlier this year I found a link to what turned out to be an old article that showed how the US hospitals compared against the national average. It was kind of sneaky, because if I remember correctly it only showed whether the hospital did better, worse or equal to the national average for all hospitals.

This morning I found a new article from USA Today that shows the newly released percentages of death rates for each hospital. The parameters of what the data includes can be found on a second page that also has an interactive map.

I did note that when looking at the map with the chart feature selected, there was a statement that said, "Each vertical line below represents one hospital, and each hospital has three values. Each line's midpoint shows the government's best estimate (my emphasis) of that hospital's death rate, but its actual rate could fall anywhere between the upper and lower percentages"

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/200 ... ates_N.htm

Interactive Chart: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/hos ... raphic.htm