A new study shows sharp regional strengths and weaknesses in the quality of patient care at U.S. hospitals. The study was performed by Ashish Jha, assistant professor of health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Boston Veterans Affairs Healthcare System. They used data from the Hospital Quality Alliance for 3,558 hospitals to examine 10 quality indicators that have been shown to reduce death or improve health for three important medical conditions: acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure and pneumonia.

The researchers found tremendous regional variation in quality of care. Boston-area hospitals ranked best care in the nation for patients with heart attacks or congestive heart failure, but didn’t do as well in providing care for pneumonia patients. In addition, nonprofit hospitals consistently outperformed for-profit hospitals, and hospitals in the Northeast and Midwest scored higher than those in the West and South. Overall, patients failed to receive needed care up to 20 percent of the time.

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