How Does your City Rank for Health Care?

[Zee_RN, BSN, RN]

I found this article on IWON.com. I particularly liked the fact that one of the factors they use to evaluate a city's health care rank is the number of nurses per 100,000 patients. The full report (in Adobe Acrobat format) is available by going the the website listed at the end of the article. My city, Pittsburgh, ranked (yeesh, I forget already) somewhere in the 60s, I believe.

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How Does Your City Rank When it Comes to Health Care?

Survey ranks U.S. metropolises for cost and quality of services

SATURDAY, March 29 (HealthScoutNews) -- Top honors for the cost and quality of health care go to Rochester, Minn., home of the famed Mayo Clinic.

In its first annual survey of such matters, Expansion Management magazine ranked the top 100 U.S. cities in terms of their health quotients (HQ).

The magazine bills itself as read by 45,000 executives of companies looking for the best place to expand or relocate their operations.

The HQ included 11 categories used to measure the cost, quality and availability of health care in 329 metro areas throughout the country.

Health-care costs, employer insurance costs, hospital beds per 1,000 population, number of community health centers, number of nurses per 100,000 population, and the number of teaching hospitals are among the measures included in the HQ.

While Rochester, Minn., took first place, the state of Iowa claimed seven of the top 40 slots.

Here are the top 10 finishers:

 Rochester, Minn.

 Charlottesville, Va.

 Omaha, Neb.

 Roanoke, Va.

 Richmond-Petersburg, Va.

 Iowa City, Iowa.

 Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

 St. Cloud, Minn.

 Fargo-Moorhead, N.D.

 Bismarck, N.D.

http://my.en.com/~ship/research.htm

[oramar]

Wow, Zee is the Burgh really that far down? They are always telling us how lucky we are to have all these great medical centers around here. My guess is that the broad chasm between what is available and what the average person has actual access to is the problem. I tell you, it is not a town where a nurse is valued very much. Not valued by the average citizen and certainly not valued by healthcare administration. I don't care if they run ads on tv saying how much they love us. The same people running the ads are in board rooms plotting to cut expenses by cutting staff as we speak. Personally I am seeing signs of un uprising. I am wondering if large scale unionization in not on the horizon.

[BadBird, BSN, RN]

Did you ever notice that the ads they run and the nurses pictured on the billboards are always actors and actresses!!! No real nurses, I wonder why, oh yeah, they couldn't find any that smile.

[Zee_RN, BSN, RN]

Oramar and Badbird--I went and looked it up again. Pittsburgh's overall rank is 68. There is a big table in the document listing various cities by their overall rank and then within the table, each city's rank by category is displayed.

For example, a few of Pittsburgh's rankings are:

-- Nurses per 100,000 population: 27th rank

-- Number of hospital beds per 1,000 pop: 45th rank

-- Number of teaching hospitals: 6th rank

.....and so forth.

But Badbird, I have to disagree with you regarding the "real nurses in billboards" statement. The nurses FRH had displayed on their billboards are real. One of them was an ICU nurse (you don't know him, though, he started after you left).

[oramar]

Zee I tried twice to open the Acrobat at the site. Just won't open, usually I have not problem with Acrobat.

[Zee_RN, BSN, RN]

Hmmmm, I dunno, Oramar. I had no problem opening it from here. I'll see if I can get the article another way.

[Zee_RN, BSN, RN]

I was able to copy the article onto my computer but not able to copy it in any legible form to print here (the table at least). Maybe try their website http://www.expansionmanagement.com.

Interesting to note, Philadelphia isn't even on the 100 cities listed.