The most fascinating web site was www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov from the Department of Health and Human Services that allows you to compare hospitals within your area.
I naturally decided to take a look at a comparison between Sarasota Memorial Hospital and Manatee Memorial Hospital.
Statistically, both hospitals performed well, typically performing above the US hospital average. The two hospitals performed nearly the same in many categories. However, there were some categories where one hospital outperformed the other. Overall, it seems like Sarasota Memorial performed slightly better than Manatee Memorial, but it really depends on the category.
The first category dealt with surgical care, including the percentage of patients who received the right kind of antibiotics at the right time to prevent infections. Sarasota Memorial was much better at giving antibiotics at the right time to prevent surgical infections and both hospitals had nearly the same performance with providing the right kind of antibiotic to prevent infection. Manatee Memorial performed better at stopping antibiotic dosages at the right time, but I'm not sure that makes up for having a weaker performance giving antibiotics at the right time.
I decided to create a few charts using Excel to help compare the hospitals. I also included the US hospital average for further comparison. Both Sarasota and Manatee Memorial performed better than the US hospital average in these categories. Click on the image to see a larger view.
If you have a heart attack, it seems like you're in great hands at both hospitals. The hospitals performed nearly the same in every reported statistic except for two categories. Manatee Memorial gave 57% of their heart attack patients Fibrinolytic medication within 30 minutes of arrival, while Sarasota Memorial gave 0% of their patients that medication. It's important to note that the data for this statistic was so low for both hospitals (only 1 case was used for Sarasota Memorial) that there is no way of really knowing if these percentages are true. The second category, in which Manatee Memorial also performed better, was the percent of heart attack patients given PCI within 90 minutes of arrival. Eighty-three percent of Manatee patients received PCI within 90 minutes while only fifty-two percent of Sarasota Memorial patients did.
One of the biggest differences between the two hospitals was not the type of medicine patients received, but the type of experience patients had while they were there. This blog has reported how important good doctor-patient communication is, as well as having patients feel like they are in a clean and organized environment. Well, Sarasota Memorial performed better on surveys given to patients about their inpatient care during their stay. Sarasota's performance wasn't spectacular since they only performed around the national average, but Sarasota Memorial did perform significantly better than Manatee in every patient experience category. A higher percentage of Sarasota Memorial patients rated their hospital experience very positively and a higher percentage of Sarasota Memorial patients also felt that their nurses and doctors always communicated well with them. The largest percentage difference was that 77% of Sarasota Memorial patients would definitely recommend the hospital while only 51% of Manatee Memorial patients said the same. Click on the image for a larger view.
Feel free to explore the comparisons at www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov and be sure to check out the other medical links from the New York Times article.
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