Overall star rating for hospitals

The overall star rating for hospitals summarizes quality information on important topics, like readmissions and deaths after heart attacks or pneumonia. The overall rating, between 1 and 5 stars, summarizes a variety of measures across 5 areas of quality into a single star rating for each hospital. The 5 measure groups include:

• Mortality
• Safety of care
• Readmission
• Patient experience
• Timely and effective care

The overall rating shows how well each hospital performed on an identified set of quality measures compared to other hospitals in the U.S. The more stars, the better a hospital performed on the available quality measures. Some new or small hospitals may not report data on all measures, and therefore, aren't eligible for an overall hospital rating.

• Get detailed information about the measures included in each measure group

Star ratings can give you information and help you compare hospitals locally and nationwide, but you should consider a variety of factors when choosing a hospital, like physician guidance about your care plan. Along with the overall rating, you should look at other aspects of hospital quality like rates of infection and complications, and patients' experience of care based on survey results.