Hospital star ranking rankles the industry

The federal government released its first overall hospital quality rating on Wednesday, slapping average or belowaverage scores on many of the nation’s best-known hospitals while awarding top scores to dozens of unheralded ones.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rated 3,617 hospitals on a one- to five-star scale, angering the hospital industry, which has been pressing the Obama administration and Congress to block the ratings. Hospitals argue the ratings will make places that treat the toughest cases look bad, but Medicare has held firm, saying that consumers need a simple way to objectively gauge quality. Medicare does factor in the health of patients when comparing hospitals, though not as much as some hospitals would like.

Just 102 hospitals received the top rating of five stars, and few are those considered as the nation’s best by private ratings sources such as U.S. News & World Report or viewed as the most elite within the medical profession.

Medicare awarded five stars to relatively obscure hospitals and at least 40 hospitals that specialize in just a few types of surgery, such as knee replacements. There were more five-star hospitals in Lincoln, Nebraska, and La Jolla, than in New York City or Boston. Memorial Hermann Hospital System in Houston and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, were two of the nationally known hospitals getting five stars.

In the Bay Area, only two hospitals garnered five stars: Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula and Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center of Santa Cruz.

Medicare awarded the lowest rating of one star to 129 hospitals, including Highland Hospital in Oakland, St. Rose Hospital in Hayward, and San Francisco General Hospital in San Francisco. Five hospitals in Washington, D.C., received just one star, including George Washington University Hospital and MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, both of which teach medical residents.

“Consumers can use this trustworthy program to compare hospitals side by side,” said Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, a Washington nonprofit. “This is a huge step forward.”

Some premier medical centers received the second-highest rating of four stars, such as Stanford Health Care in California, Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

In total, 927 hospitals received four stars, including El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame, John Muir Medical Centers in Concord and Walnut Creek, San Ramon Regional Medical Center in San Ramon, Novato Community Hospital in Novato, ValleyCare Medical Center in Pleasanton, St. Mary’s Medical Center and California Pacific Medical Center-Pacific Campus, both in San Francisco.

Medicare gave its below average score of twostar ratings to 707 hospitals. In the Bay Area, they include Alameda Hospital in Alameda; Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley; Contra Costa Regional Medical Center in Martinez; Good Samaritan Hospital; O’Connor Hospital; Regional Medical Center and Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, all in San Jose; Seton Medical Center in Daly City; Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital in Hollister; Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Walnut Creek; San Leandro Hospital in San Leandro; Sutter Delta Medical Center in Antioch; and California Pacific Medical Center-St. Luke’s Campus in San Francisco.

Nearly half the hospitals — 1,752 — received an average rating of three stars. Another 1,042 hospitals were not rated, either because they did not have enough cases for the government to evaluate accurately.

For the complete list of hospitals and rankings, go to http://bit.ly/2a0Tsz4.