Patients Give NH Hospitals Good to Fair Marks

By Charlene Arsenault and Tony Schinella/Patch

The latest Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services-Hospital Compare list was compiled after researchers looked at data for nearly 5,000 hospitals across the country. The results of surveys from patients were also used to rank the centers in regard to in-patient care.

In the latest report, no New Hampshire hospitals received a 5-star rating. All were either 4-star or 3-star ratings, based on hundreds of surveys from patients.

Concord Hospital received a 4-star rating based on 590 surveys.

Parkland Medical Center in Derry, St. Joseph’s Hospital in Nashua, Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, Huggins Hospital in Wolfeboro, Littleton Regional Healthcare, Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, New London Hospital, Valley Regional Hospital in Claremont, and Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, also all received a 4-star rating. Exeter Hospital, Portsmouth Regional Hospital, Southern NH Medical Center in Nashua, Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, Elliot Hospital in Manchester, Lakes Region General Hospital in Laconia, Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in Lebanon, Memorial Hospital in North Conway, also all received a 3-star rating.

According to the reports, poor scores can result in lower reimbursement rates from Medicare under the government’s value-based purchasing program.

CMS, a consumer-oriented website that provides information on how well hospitals provide recommended care to their patients, updated its rankings on Oct. 8, 2015, which are based on patient responses to Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems surveys between Jan.1 and Dec. 31, 2014. Patients receive these at the end of their care and are asked to answer questions on the quality of the experience they received from each hospital.

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