The death of death rates?
Posted on 16 July 2015
Writing in the BMJ, Tim Doran, Professor of Health Policy, Karen Bloor, Professor of Health Economics and Policy, and Alan Maynard, Emeritus Professor, claim that however carefully they are adjusted, death rates do not account for recording errors, variation in risk across hospitals, variation in performance within hospitals and the availability of alternative places where patients can die.
The three academics were commenting on a piece of research which argues that standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) for hospitals do not provide an accurate picture of how many deaths could have been avoided.
The study was led by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Imperial College London and is also published in the BMJ.
Using mortality as a quality indicator for hospitals - the BMJ