Hospital Compare

What is Hospital Compare?

Hospital Compare has information about the quality of care at over 4,000 Medicare-certified hospitals across the country. You can use Hospital Compare to find hospitals and compare the quality of their care.

The information on Hospital Compare:
•Helps you make decisions about where you get your health care
•Encourages hospitals to improve the quality of care they provide

How the Hospital Compare overall rating is calculated:

The overall hospital quality star rating summarize a variety of measures across 7 areas of quality into a single star rating for each hospital. Once reporting thresholds are met, a hospital's overall quality star rating is calculated using only those measures for which data are available. This may include as few as 9 or as many as 51 measures. The average is about 37 measures. Hospitals report data to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services through the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program and the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting (OQR) Program. Star ratings aren't calculated for Veterans Health Administration (VHA) or Department of Defense (DoD) hospitals.

The methodology uses a statistical model known as a latent variable model. Seven different latent variable models are used to calculate scores for 7 groups of measures.

1. Mortality
2. Safety of Care
3. Readmission
4. Patient Experience
5. Effectiveness of Care
6. Timeliness of Care
7. Efficient Use of Medical Imaging

A hospital summary score is then calculated by taking the weighted average of these group scores. If a hospital is missing a measure category or group, the weights are redistributed amongst the qualifying measure categories or groups.

Finally, the overall hospital quality star rating is calculated using the hospital summary score.

Only hospitals that have at least 3 measures within at least 3 measure groups or categories, including one outcome group (mortality, safety, or readmission), are eligible for an overall hospital quality star rating. Not all hospitals report all measures. Therefore, some hospitals may not be eligible for an overall quality star rating.

The comprehensive methodology report provides additional detail on the methodology used to calculate the overall hospital quality star rating.

National distribution of overall star ratings

The following table shows the national distribution of the overall star rating based on latest results.

Overall Rating	Number of Hospitals(%)
5 stars	407 (8.88%)
4 Stars	1,138 (24.82%)
3 Stars	1,120 (24.42%)
2 Stars	710 (15.48%)
1 Star	228 (4.97%)
N/A	983 (21.43%)

Follow the link below to view the full report for Bradley County Medical Center, which is currently a four-star hospital:
BCMC Hospital Compare Report