Too much attention should not be paid to ranking in league tables

Too much attention should not be paid to ranking in league tables

League tables of schools and hospitals are increasingly common, and much attention is paid to the precise position of an institutionin the table. On p 1701 Marshall and Spiegelhalter describe anew statistical technique that can be used to quantify the uncertainty about those ranks and have applied it to published data on thesuccess rates of in vitro fertilisation clinics in the UnitedKingdom. Even though there are clear differences between the performanceof the clinics the confidence intervals around the ranks are generallywide, particularly for smaller and middle ranking clinics. Largechanges in position from year to year did not necessarily meana significant change in success rate.

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Reliability of league tables of in vitro fertilisation clinics: retrospective analysis of live birth rates • Commentary: How robust are rankings? The implications of confidence intervals: E Clare Marshall, David J Spiegelhalter, Colin Sanderson, and Martin McKee
BMJ 1998 316: 1701-1705. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]