New hospital ranking system prioritizes community well-being

A new hospital ranking from the Lown Institute finds that institutions that score well on traditional measures such as patient outcomes score poorly when it comes to reducing inequities among the community they serve. The scoring system prioritizes a new category called civic leadership, for assessing commitment to equity, inclusion, and community health. According to these rankings, JPS Health Network in Fort Worth, Texas, earns top marks for civic leadership, although it has scored poorly in rankings from other institutions due to safety failures and other problems. At the same time, star hospitals such as Massachusetts General Hospital and Mayo Clinic earned Ds in civic leadership because of a lack of pay equity — hospital executives earn multimillion dollar salaries — even though they are teaching hospitals. Read more here.