Leapfrog and Castlight to create better hospital ratings system for patients

In a move that may, depending on your perspective, either improve current hospital rating systems or create greater confusion, the Leapfrog Group, the leading non-profit hospital quality surveyor, and Castlight Health, a leading provider of cloud-based software for healthcare data, are partnering on a “consumer-friendly” analysis of nationwide hospital performance.

Both organizations are on the rise. Leapfrog recently reported record participation by 1,430 hospitals in its voluntary 2013 Leapfrog Hospital Survey, and is beginning the third year of its semi-annual Hospital Safety Score. Meanwhile, Castlight just saw its initial public offering (IPO) soar 149.1 percent in the first day of trading giving the small company with $13 million in annual revenue a market cap of $3 billion.

However, Leapfrog has faced criticism by many hospitals and the American Hospital Association (AHA) for scoring inaccuracies and biased reporting. Leapfrog’s letter grade system where hospitals are ranked from A to F on rates of errors, injuries, accidents and infections may also boil down inherently complex quality measures into an overly simplistic grade to please consumers and compete with other ratings groups, such as Consumer Reports’ “Your Safer-Surgery Survival Guide.”

Castlight and Leapfrog say that together, they can produce a better system for patients to select hospitals based on safety and quality, as well as educate the public on the overall state of hospital care in the United States. Through the partnership, Castlight will analyze Leapfrog’s most recent survey results and create a report that breaks down hospital performance data by region and by each of 28 survey metrics, yet still keeps it easy for individuals to understand through graphics.

Unlike Consumer Reports, which draws on Medicare claims data and not actual clinical data, the Leapfrog ratings may prove to be more valid if they can simultaneously become more nuanced without becoming too hard for consumers to make sense of. For example, the government’s attempt at publishing quality data for Medicare beneficiaries — the Medicare.gov Hospital Compare site — has been criticized for being too difficult for Medicare beneficiaries to use.

In addition, outside of planned procedures and deliveries, few patients shop for a hospital ahead of needing one, selecting instead on proximity, their doctor’s recommendation or familiarity with an institution. Whether an easier-to-use hospital ratings system can change this remains to be seen.