NEW YORK (Money Magazine) -
When you're trying to pick out, say, an SUV, you can compare features, look up safety records and read reviews online or in magazines.
When you're looking for a doctor or hospital, you'll find very little solid comparative information -- just the advice of doctors and medical administrators who likely want your business.
"It's unbelievable how poorly informed we are, how little information we have to go on," says Debra Ness of the Disclosure Project, a coalition of employers and consumers that is pushing health-care providers to measure and report their performance.
In fact, there are various ways to measure hospital quality and little agreement on which is best. Low complication and mortality rates are important, of course. Volume -- the sheer number of a given procedure performed -- has proven to be a good predictor of outcomes, especially for complex procedures.
They're imperfect, but measures like these are valuable tools for health-care consumers. That's the thinking behind MONEY's database of the best hospitals for 20 common medical conditions. HealthGrades uses Medicare mortality and complication data to rate hospitals.
On the assumption that you may be willing to travel for excellent medical care but prefer staying somewhat close to home, we asked Sarah Loughran and Dr. Samantha Collier of HealthGrades to provide the names of top hospitals in each of five regions. For each area, HealthGrades included only the five-star hospitals in its database for each procedure.
Once HealthGrades identified the hospitals, MONEY's reporters asked each facility for the names of the three doctors who treat the most patients with that condition or, if they refused, the name of the department head or other supervising physician.
That way, if you or a family member is facing one of these diagnoses, you'll have a person to call. This extra information is available only in MONEY's special Fall issue.
The tool is a good starting point, but it's no substitute for asking questions and doing your homework. For advice on how to research doctors and hospitals and what questions to ask, read the full story from Money Magazine.
To date, HealthGrades doesn't have ratings for some conditions, including cancer.
And because the firm collects its data from the Medicare database, the medical outcomes are for patients 65 or older, which excludes pediatric procedures, cesarean sections and other treatments common among women of childbearing age.
But despite those flaws, we believe it's the best, most comprehensive set of data currently available. We hope you find it helpful when you need it most.
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