A new online rating system launched Wednesday comparing hospitals across Canada has given the Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital in Trail a solid B grade.
In a first for Canada, CBC television's, “The Fifth Estate” has created the Rate My Hospital website that uses an assessment process for rating the performance of similarly sized hospitals across the country using a combination of online surveys, nationally collected data, and a panel of health care experts.
The new site also allows patients of the respective hospital to do their own rating of their experience if they've recently received services in one of the rated health care facilities.
While a “B” rating may not seem like a bad mark to many of us, Interior Health CEO, Dr. Robert Halpenny, was less than enthusiastic about the ranking and the website.
In press release Wednesday, Halpenny expressed his agreement with the ideals of measuring health care data but less so about the process the CBC has used.
“Interior Health recognizes and supports the importance of transparency and accountability and we welcome third party reviews that make information accessible to our patients and also identify areas where we can make improvements,” Halpenny stated.
“However, along with other health authorities and jurisdictions in Canada, I have a number of concerns with subjective surveys and the CBC Rate My Hospital project.
“The data used to calculate these rankings came from a variety of sources which were reviewed, prioritized, and ranked by a panel of experts selected by the CBC. I would note that all six IH facilities received a B or average rating according to CBC.
“I am concerned that these rankings do not include many of the clinical indicators we look at in measuring and improving the quality of care we provide in Interior Health.”
Halpenny was not alone among Canadian hospital's CEO's in not approving of the process in that Interior Health was not among the 132 out of 600 contacted who agreed to participate in the part of the survey targeted towards them.
Anyone interested in learning more on Rate My Hospital and how the various hospitals across the country measured up can go to www.cbc.ca/news/health/features/ratemyhospital.
on the web.
For Dr. Halpenny's press release anyone interested can go to www.interiorhealth.ca.