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Choosing a Good Hospital

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The hospital with the fanciest ads or nicest atrium might not be the best in town when it comes to delivering quality health care. Our Ratings can help you with choosing a hospital that practices well-organized medicine and keeps you safe and well informed.

What We Rate

• Patient satisfaction. Based on a government survey of more than 2 million patients, these Ratings tell you how patients felt about everything from how clean their rooms were to whether their pain was controlled to how well doctors and nurses communicated with them.


• Chronic care. These Ratings tell you whether a hospital has an aggressive or conservative style of care. They're based on how hospitals treat Medicare patients suffering from common chronic illnesses like heart failure or diabetes in the last two years of their lives. Note that aggressive care does not necessarily improve patient outcomes and can sometimes shorten life. Learn more.


• Surgical-infection prevention. Giving the right antibiotics on the right schedule can both prevent post-surgical infections and guard against antibiotic overuse. These Ratings, based on data from a national Medicare initiative, tell you if your hospital is following the recommended procedures. Learn more.


• Central-line bloodstream infections. Bloodstream infections from central intravenous lines in intensive-care units are often fatal, and almost completely preventable with proper hygiene and attention to detail. Our Ratings include central-line infection rates in 926 hospitals across 43 states. Learn more.