Madison Memorial disagrees with poor ranking

Earlier this week, Health Magazine released an article on the 25 worst hospitals in the U.S. and Madison Memorial Hospital in Rexburg made the list.

The hospital has received numerous calls about this ranking.

While patient experiences vary from good to bad, the hospital says the information isn’t accurate and it should not be on the list.

The report was put together by Leapfrog, a group of public and private purchasers of health insurance benefits. Every year, they take data given to them by hospitals around the country and compile their lists.

The problem is, Madison Memorial didn’t give them any.

“The surveys are set up basically you can opt into it if the hospital so chooses to do it,” said Douglas McBride, Madison Memorial public relations. “We at Madison Memorial opted out of that because it’s geared more toward metropolitan area hospitals.”

Hospital administrators said good and bad experiences happen in hospitals across the country every day.

“They’re so sweet, so attentive, they make you feel like you’re part of their family, not like a patient,” said Mandy Palmer, former patient. “I just find it hard to believe they would be named a bad hospital.”

“They ended up bringing me the wrong baby,” said Jamie Patten. “I noticed the baby was heavier, eating better, and realized it wasn’t our daughter. So I alerted the nurses and then they figured it out.”

Hospital administrators said although they didn’t take Leapfrog’s self-survey, they do report to other surveys such as the Medicare Satisfaction Survey, and score fairly high.

“97 percent of the patients who come here rate us between a 7 and a 10 and 10 is the highest on the point system,” said McBride. “So we actually do we very well and most of them are in the 9 and 10 range.”

McBride said Leapfrog received information from secondary sources in order to make their ranking.

It is important to note that the American Healthcare Association does not believe Leapfrog’s assessment is fair or accurate either.

Back in June, they wrote a letter to the group questioning their credibility (http://goo.gl/TZ8HC).

For the complete list of hospitals, visit http://goo.gl/bfmJr.