AARP: Top 50 US Hospitals

Nurses Activism

Published

#1 is North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, NY

http://www.modernmaturity.org/departments/2002/health/0505_health_a.html

Four hospitals in my area made the list! Karen

I believe you kaknurse! I went for a job interview there years and years ago.

I was very proud that the hospital in which I last did bedside nursing was in the list, but I'm beginning to wonder how this list is holding up??? Duke doesn't have a great rep for how they treat nurses, Cleveland Clinic is turning into Atilla the Hun, and I've met three other nurses from my former hospital, working at the hospital/university I'm currently employed! Sounds like people are getting away from there as fast as they can!!!

Love

Dennie

right off the bat I see at least 4 hospitals on that list that are Magnet Award winners - Cedars Sinai, Hackensack General, North Shore Hospital, & Long Island Jewish Hospital - didnt look any further down the list but last I heard the nurses at those hosiptals were pretty happy.

My 2 cents....

Duke treats me like a princess, New Hanover treated me like an unwanted dog......

A big thanks to you for sharing this article/list, it was pretty interesting to see how they rank hospitals and I am very happy to see the hospital I have chosen to work in upon graduation is ranked #30!!

~Channa :)

Graduating in 4 weeks...and counting!

Originally posted by Julie, RN

My 2 cents....

Duke treats me like a princess, New Hanover treated me like an unwanted dog......

Yes, but you're on the oncology unit...you have the benefit of a nurse manager not suffering from recto-cranial inversion, plus an exceptional staff. The onc units and the peds units (NOT the NICU) always seemed to be 'insulated' from the Dook crap.

Hi. Looks like the NE section followed by the central section of the U.S. is the big winner. I believe the HRSA survey indicated that most nurses, especially RNs are concentrated in these areas. Glad to see that there were hospitals located in the SE section on the list such as Emory and Crawford Long. There was an inconspicous absence of hospitals from the SW. Perhaps they should expand the list to the top 100.

perhaps facilities in the SW area did not partiocipate in the survey. But if they did, maybe they should look at WHY they didnt make the AARP consumers list of best hospitals & fix any problems that prevented them from being included as one of the nations top 50 hospitals:

That's how many hospital records Consumers' Checkbook sifted through to collect just part of the data used to rate the hospitals. They also checked hospital accreditations and sent out 260,000 questionnaires (20,000 were returned) to physicians in major metropolitan areas in the U.S., asking them to rate their local hospitals. The number of eligible acute care hospitals: 1,308. The final list of 50 Top Hospitals was selected using the following criteria:

***Death rates for various types of medical and surgical cases.

***Physician ratings. Percentage of surveyed doctors rating hospital "very good" or "excellent" for high-risk adult surgery. The five-point rating ranged from "poor" to "excellent."

***Accreditation score. This number, given regularly by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, reflects the hospital's performance on a review of standards. Among the hospitals included in the study, scores ranged from 71 to 100.

***Training programs. The extent of training the hospital provides for physicians based on number of medical school affiliations and residents on staff, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services records as of April 2001.....">>

I notice there is no mention about RN staffing ratios or other safe RN staffing practices. In this survey, Quality Nursing Care is not considered as a criteria to be used in rating best hospitals. That is very odd since the RN is the one thing that stands between a patient & disaster.

Studies have shown that the RN & the quality of nursing care she/he can provide has an impact on the patients morbidity and mortality rate.

Therefore, when evaluating which hospitals are best for patients, it seems only logical that one would look at the hospitals' RN staffing practices - too high patient case loads for one RN to safely manage, the use of unsafe forced overtime for staffing, the equally dangerous practice of "floating"nurses to work on unfamiliar floors which they are not qualified to work on and havent been trained for, and the use unlicensed assistive personnel in place of RNs, etc - all of which can negatively affect the patient and his recovery and which should be a concern for all healthcare consumers.

Hi -jt. I agree with your assessments. However, note that most of the highly ranked hospitals are in or around your area, the NE or central section of the states. According to the HRSA survey, your area is where most of the RNs are concentrated. I'm willing to bet that most of the other hospitals outside of the NE and central regions on the AARP list also have a higher than typical ratio of RNs to patients or the administration is not totally at odds with the nursing staff to the point were low morale adversely affects patient care. Therefore, as you pointed out, there is a case to be made for utilizing data that would include such things as the ratio of RNs to patients.

I wonder what might be the reasons for that? We do have strong nurses unions & good salaries but I dont know if this is the reason we have a concentration of nurses here. I really would like to know the reason we have so many nurses as opposed to other areas of the country. If I didnt know better, I would have guessed that most nurses would be in California, Florida and Hawaii. Nice places to live.

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