Becker's Clinical Leadership: How important are national rankings to physician executives? (7 August 2024)

Summary

National rankings offer patients valuable insights into a health system's care quality, outcomes and performance, helping them make informed choices. But to what extent do these ratings influence health systems' strategies and conversations surrounding quality? 

Becker's spoke with physician executives from four US health systems to understand how they view national rankings, communicate them to their teams and whether they tailor their quality strategies around them.

Many leaders said they place more weight on national benchmarking data from private third-party organisations due to the retrospective nature of national rankings such as Leapfrog's safety grades, CMS' Overall Hospital Star Ratings or US News & World Report's best hospitals. Leaders also emphasised the importance of keeping staff focused on high-reliability principles and their core purpose of serving patients, noting that strong ratings will naturally follow.