Issue Highlights

The US News & World Report annual publication of "America's Best Hospitals" attracts considerable attention each year, but the validity of the ranking is not known.Investigators from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations sought to determine how ranked and unranked hospitals compared on the publicly reported quality-of-care measures for patients admitted with acute myocardial infarction and heart failure.Williams and colleagues compare 41 ranked hospitals and 733 unranked hospitals with respect to their performance on 6 acute myocardial infarction and 4 heart failure process measures.The study determined if the ranked hospitals, in aggregate, performed better and then investigated how well the ranking discriminated between hospitals by their performance.The results provide important information about the value of this popular system.See p 558.