Evaluating hospital quality for vascular surgery.

Increasingly, there is a wealth of data available to aid patients in determining where to seek care for quality vascular disease. At times, these data may be difficult for the public to comprehend. Hospital rating organizations, frequently motivated by profit, are marketing directly to consumers with increasingly granular data. In this report, we examine the most popular ratings for hospitals that perform vascular surgical procedures and describe the methodology of each rating system, as well as the validity of the data underscoring these ratings. Understanding how hospital quality is being evaluated and what outcomes measures are being collated allows vascular surgeons to take appropriate actions to ensure the validity of their own hospital ratings.