To help patients decide where to receive care, U.S. News evaluates data on nearly 5,000 hospitals in 16 adult specialties, 9 adult procedures and conditions and 10 pediatric specialties. To be nationally ranked in a specialty, a hospital must excel in caring for the sickest, most medically complex patients. I will be writing several blogs over the next few days sharing the ratings for hospitals in Western Virginia. Today, we focus on my hometown giant, Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital (CRMH).
CRMH is a general medical and surgical hospital in Roanoke, VA and has 655 beds. The hospital had 36,489 admissions in the latest year for which data are available. It performed 13,067 annual inpatient and 22,146 outpatient surgeries. Its emergency room had 80,247 visits.
While not terrible, I will summarize CRMH’s ratings in the following high volume medical specialties:
1. Neurology and Neurosurgery – rated 50 out of 100 and unranked in the United States.
2. Cancer Treatment – rated 37 out of 100 and unranked in the United States and, in other words, not high performing.
3. Cardiology and Heart Surgery – rated 52 out of 100 in the United States and not high performing.
4. Gynecology – rated 46 out of 100 in the United States and not high performing.
The news is not all bad for my local hospital. The highest performing departments/areas of practice at CRMH are: Diabetes and Endocrinology, Gastroenterology and Gastrointestinal Surgery, Geriatrics, Pulmonary, and Urology.
Read the report here.
My Recommendation: Protect yourself and be an informed consumer of medical care. Your life may depend on it.