The head of the New York Public Interest Research Group says the quality of care at hospitals should be one of the top issues lawmakers consider as they work to close the more than $6 billion budget gap.
New York received low rankings on a federal assessment of the quality of care at U.S hospitals.
“What’s stunning to me is how little interest there is by the political elite of Albany to take a look at this issue. Given the scale of the number of people that are injured or killed due to substandard care that this data shows, you would expect that there would be hearings about this all the time. And yet there’s almost nothing that ever happens,” said NYPIRG’s Blair Horner.
He says fixing the problem could save lives and money.
“The important thing is to ensure that high quality care is being delivered in New York State hospitals. We believe not only is it good for patients, but it’s cheaper. Cheaper because if you don’t have to be readmitted to a hospital because of a mistake, it’s cheaper to the system.”
A federal analysis of U.S. hospitals gave New York hospitals overall the rank of 2 out of 5 stars. And 11% of hospitals in the state received only 1 star.
NYPRIG released its own report on the data this week to call attention to the issue.
