Every day in the health care industry, consumers increasingly make decisions on which providers to see, what treatment options to pursue and what price to pay for everything from routine care and diagnostic tests to the most complex of medical procedures.
We are all moving toward a more consumer-driven health care world. But unlike other retail and consumer markets, the average health care consumer has relatively little information with which to evaluate their options.
Are we also moving toward a place where we choose doctors or hospitals based on how many stars they have? Americans choosing their health care like a car or automobile, based on online reviews and rankings from third-party quality scores, raises the question of whether this is an appropriate and meaningful way to make health care decisions.
This evolution was highlighted in a recent New York Times’ report on the North Carolina Children’s Hospital and its pediatric heart surgery program. The story focused on the hospital’s mortality rate that is higher than other leading institutions performing the same work and almost twice the national average. The hospital announced on June 17 that it was suspending the program with no stated date to resume the program.
An important component of the story was the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) star ratings of pediatric heart surgery programs throughout the country. The STS system is a voluntary, self-reporting quality data initiative intended to provide information that will assist physicians and consumers in evaluating a provider’s quality measures. The STS website itself says, ” The Society of Thoracic Surgeons believes that the public has a right to know the quality of surgical outcomes.”