Published 21 April 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1641
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1641

News

Government will still publish hospital standardised mortality ratios despite criticism

¹ London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The Department of Health has said it will publish mortality ratios of patients in hospitals in England in the next few weeks despite research indicating that the measures do not help to distinguish between the quality of care provided at different hospitals.

The department has said that the publication of hospital standardised mortality ratios on the NHS Choices website will allow doctors and the public to more easily compare the performance of local services. The site already carries mortality rates for heart surgery and four other procedures, including hip and knee replacements, for every hospital in England.

But a study published online by the BMJ last month (2009;338:b7808, doi:10.1136/bmj.b780) criticised the use of the ratios for rating hospitals in England and other countries because their use distorted results.

Although the figures were standardised, some of the variables, such as primary diagnosis and previous admissions in the past year, . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Articles

Hospital trust sacrificed patient care to financial matters, commission says

Oona Mashta
BMJ 2009 338: b1141. [Extract] [Full Text]

Evidence of methodological bias in hospital standardised mortality ratios: retrospective database study of English hospitals

Mohammed A Mohammed, Jonathan J Deeks, Alan Girling, Gavin Rudge, Martin Carmalt, Andrew J Stevens, and Richard J Lilford
BMJ 2009 338: b780. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Darzi review: Reward hospitals for improving quality, Lord Darzi says

Rebecca Coombes
BMJ 2008 337: a642. [Extract] [Full Text]

Online poll

Find out more >>