Overview
- Forbes partnered with Inovalon and convened measurement experts, clinicians, statisticians, health policy researchers and patient advocates to design the rating system.
- The evaluation began with roughly 5,400 CMS-listed general acute care hospitals, with about 2,500 meeting the inclusion criteria for analysis.
- Patient outcomes such as readmissions, infections and mortality received the greatest weight in the scoring framework.
- Outcome measures were adjusted for community income, education and transportation access to reduce socioeconomic bias in comparisons.
- The published results recognize 253 hospitals with five stars and 509 with four stars, and Forbes specifies there is no fee to be considered and the ratings are not medical advice.