Letters

In "How Safe Is Your Hospital?" (August 2012), what does it say about the nation's health-care system when the highest safety score is 72 out of 100 and when of 1,159 hospitals rated, only seven score above a 70? We expect more than a C-minus average from our high school and college graduates, so why can we accept less from our hospitals when they have our lives in their hands? Hospitals need to be held to higher standards and to perform at higher levels.
     E.E. Reynolds Warner Robins, GA

Your article and Ratings sound an alarm bell that goes to the core of what should be the central argument in the health-care reform debate. Our hospitals are substantially unsafe because of the lack of market discipline in health-care delivery. There is scant data on how hospitals are performing, leaving patients who want to make intelligent choices without the tools to do so. The focus of reform should be to reshape the system to be more consumer-driven. And increased transparency is a critical stop on the way to better outcomes at lower costs.
     Michael Abrams St. Louis, MO

Correction: The Ratings table with  "How Safe Is Your Hospital?" in August showed an incorrect infection rating for certain hospitals, though the error doesn't affect any of the hospitals' safety scores or their overall ranking. Specifically, 128 of the 1,159 hospitals were shown as having a better infection rating than they actually had; five others were listed as having a worse rating than they had. All changes were limited to one-step moves in our five-point scale. We don't believe the changes should affect your choice of hospital because, as the article said, you should pay attention to differences in the safety score, and those were all correct. For a list of changes and affected hospitals, download a PDF at ConsumerReports.org/HospitalCorrection.

You write  "If you must walk and talk or text, act like a driver and pull over into a quiet area," in August's "Phones Put Pedestrians in a Fog." As if that's what drivers would do! If it were up to me, dangerous drivers who don't pull over would be stopped before they hit an innocent citizen.
     Richard Siegelman Plainview, NY