ST JAMES’S Hospital in Dublin has been found by the HSE to be the best performing hospital in the country, while University College Hospital in Galway has been found to be the worst.
The findings will be set out this week in an assessment of the country’s main hospitals, based on a number of criteria such as access to services for patients and on how beds are used. The assessments did not measure clinical outcomes for patients.
The HSE has been carrying out such assessments of hospitals under its HealthStat programme over the past year. However, up to now published findings have been set out in alphabetical order rather than in order of performance.
A new report to be released by the HSE in the week ahead, based on assessments carried out in May, will list each hospital in what is effectively a league table of performance. Under the assessment, hospitals are placed in one of three categories, green at the top, amber in the middle and red at the bottom.
The report will set out St James’s in Dublin, Wexford General and the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar as the three best performing in the country under the various criteria.
Those at the bottom of the list are University College Hospital Galway and Cork University Hospital where the performance under the HSE criteria was deemed to be “unsatisfactory” and “requiring urgent attention”.
Informed sources said that the green mark – representing very good performance – achieved by the top three hospitals in the list was based on achieving the highest international standards.
The bulk of hospitals assessed achieved an amber mark.
Sources said that the top 10 hospitals achieving the amber mark were close to the threshold for securing the top green mark. It said that the last six in the amber category were near to those classified at the bottom in the red zone for unsatisfactory performance.
Sources said that other hospitals were firmly in the middle.
The HealthStat programme was established last year by the outgoing HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm and overseen by special adviser Maureen Lynott.
Over the last year, the HealthStat findings have shown a steady improvement in performance.
When the programme was first launched in March 2009, no hospital secured a green mark while six were assessed to be in the red zone. Under the latest findings three hospitals are judged to be in green zone while two are in the red.
Under the HealthStat programme, hospitals are assessed in relation to a number of targets including access to range of services including the emergency department, elective (non- urgent) procedures, outpatient clinics and urgent colonoscopy services. The access of GPs to diagnostic facilities is also measured.
Hospitals are also assessed on how they use their beds. This includes the use of day beds, and whether patients are admitted on the day of their procedures rather than being admitted days in advance of having tests carried out.
In a note on its website, the HSE says that under its “access” criteria it measures the waiting times that people experience for different services. “Are patients able to access consultant-led out-patient clinics, diagnostic services, treatments, procedures, therapy services, care group services and emergency services within acceptable timescales?”
It says that under integration it checks whether services received are patient-centred.
“Are people receiving outpatient or day care when they should be? Where it is suitable, are people being admitted on the day of their procedure? Is the length of stay for inpatients as should be expected?”
