Bob Moos/Southwest regional public affairs officer for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Have you wondered how your area hospitals stack up in terms of the quality of care they provide?
Emergencies obviously call for rushing to the nearest hospital. But when you have time to plan, it is worth doing some research and finding out which hospitals do the best job of caring for their patients.
Medicare’s Hospital Compare website – at medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html – has made it easier for you to check that. The site has overall star ratings to help you better understand which hospitals are top performers, which are average and which need improvement. The ratings range from one to five stars, with five being the best.
The Hospital Compare site enjoys a solid reputation with the public, showing how thousands of hospitals scored on various indicators of quality care. You can compare hospitals on the basis of such factors as clinical outcomes, customer satisfaction and patient safety.
The just-updated overall star ratings offer a snapshot of particular hospitals’ quality of care, by summing up individual measures of hospital performance posted on the website. The ratings reflect such factors as how often patients get infections after surgery, how long patients must wait in the emergency department before seeing a doctor or nurse, and how likely patients are to get readmitted to the hospital after a heart attack.
Medicare assigned stars to 3,725 Medicare-certified hospitals nationwide. Another 848 couldn’t be included, mostly because they didn’t have enough data to properly evaluate them. They may have been too new or too small and, therefore, had too few cases on which to base ratings. The ratings are updated regularly on the website, as the government continues to collect the most recent data.
Nationally, 293 hospitals received five stars, 1,086 rated four stars, 1,264 scored three stars, 800 received two stars, and 282 had just one star.
The 81 rated Louisiana hospitals scored an average of 3 stars for overall quality of care. Three received five stars, 20 rated four stars, 35 scored three stars, 21 received two stars, and two had just one star.
The three Louisiana hospitals that received Medicare’s top rating of five stars were Central Louisiana Surgical Hospital in Alexandria, Mercy Regional Medical Center in Ville Platte/Eunice and Park Place Surgical Hospital in Lafayette.
By using star ratings on its Compare websites, Medicare is trying to help you make more informed decisions about your health care. The public reporting also gives low-performing providers a compelling incentive to improve their practices and procedures and, hence, their scores.
Nursing Home Compare, Home Health Compare and the Medicare Plan Finder also use star ratings to help you check out health care providers and insurers and choose one with quality in mind.
Of course, as informative as these websites can be, they can’t tell the whole story about where to go for care. They’re simply a screening tool that lets you focus on a few providers that interest you.
Visit with your doctor about the best hospital for you. Research shows that some hospitals do better than others at treating certain conditions. And talk to family members and friends about what they liked or disliked about their recent hospital stays and which facilities they’d recommend.
Medicare also recently updated its “Guide to Choosing a Hospital,” which includes a checklist of questions to ask your doctor and explains how to find the hospital that’s the right fit for you. A free copy can be downloaded at medicare.gov or requested by calling Medicare at 1-800-633-4227.
Here’ are some of the 81 rated Louisiana hospitals; 41 other hospitals were not rated:
Abbeville – Abbeville General Hospital -- 4 stars
Alexandria – Central Louisiana Surgical Hospital – 5 stars
Alexandria – Christus St. Frances Cabrini Hospital -- 2 stars
Alexandria – Rapides Regional Medical Center -- 2 stars
Baton Rouge – Woman’s Hospital -- 3 stars
Baton Rouge – Baton Rouge General Medical Center -- 2 stars
Baton Rouge – Ochsner Medical Center – Baton Rouge -- 3 stars
Baton Rouge – Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center -- 2 stars
Crowley – Acadia General Hospital -- 3 stars
Deridder – Beauregard Memorial Hospital -- 3 stars
Hammond – Cypress Pointe Surgical Hospital – 4 stars
Hammond – North Oaks Medical Center -- 2 stars
Houma – Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center -- 3 stars
Houma – Terrebonne General Medical Center -- 2 stars
Jena – LaSalle General Hospital – 2 stars
Jennings – Jennings American Legion Hospital -- 2 stars
Kenner – Ochsner Medical Center - Kenner -- 3 stars
Lafayette – Heart Hospital of Lafayette -- 4 stars
Lafayette – Lafayette General Medical Center -- 3 stars
Lafayette – Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center -- 4 stars
Lafayette – Park Place Surgical Hospital – 5 stars
Lafayette – University Hospital and Clinics -- 4 stars
Lafayette – Women’s and Children’s Hospital – 3 stars
Lake Charles – Christus Lake Area Hospital -- 3 stars
Lake Charles – Lake Charles Memorial Hospital -- 2 stars
Lake Charles – Christus St. Patrick Hospital – 2 stars
Lake Providence – East Carroll Parish Hospital -- 4 stars
Leesville – Byrd Regional Hospital -- 4 stars
Mamou – Savoy Medical Center -- 2 stars
Mansfield – DeSoto Regional Health System -- 2 stars
Many – Sabine Medical Center – 3 stars
Marksville – Avoyelles Hospital -- 3 stars
Marrero – West Jefferson Medical Center -- 3 stars
Metairie – East Jefferson General Hospital -- 4 stars
Monroe – University Health Conway -- 3 stars
Morgan City – Teche Regional Medical Center -- 2 stars
Natchitoches – Natchitoches Regional Medical Center – 4 stars
New Iberia – Iberia Medical Center -- 2 stars
New Orleans – Tulane Medical Center – 1 star
New Orleans – Ochsner Medical Center -- 2 stars
New Orleans – University Medical Center New Orleans – 2
New Roads – Pointe Coupee General Hospital – 3 stars
Oak Grove – West Carroll Memorial Hospital -- 4 stars
Oakdale – Oakdale Community Hospital – 3 stars
Opelousas – Opelousas General Health System -- 3 stars
Raceland – Ochsner St. Anne General Hospital -- 4 stars
Rayville – Richardson Medical Center -- 3 stars
Ruston – Northern Louisiana Medical Center – 2 stars
Shreveport – Christus Health Shreveport – Bossier -- 3 stars
Shreveport – Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport – 1 star
Shreveport – Willis Knighton Medical Center -- 3 stars
Slidell – Ochsner Medical Center - Northshore -- 3 stars
Slidell – Slidell Memorial Hospital -- 3 stars
Sulphur – West Calcasieu Cameron Hospital -- 3 stars
Thibodaux – Thibodaux Regional Medical Center -- 4 stars
Ville Platte/Eunice – Mercy Regional Medical Center -- 5 stars
West Monroe – Glenwood Regional Medical Center -- 3 stars
Zachary – Lane Regional Medical Center -- 3 stars