Baltimore Among Nation’s Leaders In Health Care: Study

BALTIMORE, MD — A new report has ranked Baltimore the 5th best city in the country for health care. Healthgrades, which helps consumers find and schedule appointments with health care providers, on released its 2019 National Health Index this week, a tool for evaluating which cities are mastering health care.

The cities were ranked based on four categories: access to care, population health, hospital quality and local specialists. Among large cities, Baltimore ranked 8th in the country for access and 22nd for population health. The study said our city ranked 5th for hospital quality and 9th for local specialists.

Here’s what the authors had to say:

"Throughout this 'city of neighborhoods,' Baltimore residents benefit from availability of highly rated specialists and excellent hospital quality, including a high percentage of hospitals with 5-star ratings from Healthgrades for multiple procedures or conditions. Charm City also offers higher than average access to care, including a high rate of people with some form of health insurance. An opportunity for growth: population health, where locals could boost their city score by increasing exercise and maintaining normal body weight."

The city doing health care the best is Rochester, Minnesota, according to the study. The authors called Rochester, which has a population of just over 218,000, a "small town with a big presence for quality health care." The city earned the the highest ranking in both hospital quality and local specialists. Nearly half of its hospitals have 5-star ratings for multiple procedures and conditions, while residents maintain a normal weight and exercise regularly.

Here are the top 10 cities, according to Healthgrades:

1. Rochester, Minnesota
2. Burlington, Vermont
3. Charleston, South Carolina
4. Cincinnati, Ohio
5. Baltimore, Maryland
6. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
7. Gainesville, Florida
8. Hartford, Connecticut
9. San Jose, California
10. Cleveland, Ohio

The index found that San Francisco was the healthiest of all cities on the list; and Worcester, Massachusetts, ranked highest in access to health care.

The index looked at more than a dozen variables and grouped them into four health care categories: 1) whether the residents of each city were healthy overall, 2) if consumers had access to health care, 3) if local specialists achieved high marks in patient satisfaction and physician count per capita and 4) if patients had access to high-quality hospitals. The last category is based on Healthgrades’ own hospital quality analysis.

Archelle Georgiou, MD, senior advisor to Healthgrades, said in a release that it’s not easy to judge whether a city is getting health care right. For this reason, numerous industry data sets were used to help paint a more complete picture of health care at the local level.

“The National Health Index is designed to help consumers understand the health of their community, to empower them to navigate their care journey with confidence and to help them access the right care in their market,” said Georgiou.

The index is based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provider specialty information and patient experience survey scores, the U.S. Census Bureau and Healthgrades 2019 award year hospital quality ratings.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

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