{"id":3785,"date":"2025-02-17T07:16:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T07:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=3785"},"modified":"2025-02-17T07:16:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T07:16:00","slug":"nyu-langone-super-bowl-ad-claimed-were-1-but-wheres-scorecard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=3785","title":{"rendered":"NYU Langone Super Bowl Ad Claimed \u201cWe\u2019re #1,\u201d But Where\u2019s Scorecard?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By MICHAEL MILLENSON<\/p>\n

When the Philadelphia Eagles thrashed the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 in Super Bowl, no one disputed that they sat at the peak of professional football. In contrast, NYU Langone Health\u2019s\u00a0multi-million-dollar Super Bowl ad<\/a>\u00a0claiming \u201c#1 for quality care in the U.S.\u201d gave viewers just 2 seconds to read the very small print at the bottom of the screen providing an obscure justification for that championship status.<\/p>\n

It read: \u201c2024 Vizient Quality and Accountability Ranking. Ranked #1 out of 115 participating comprehensive academic medical centers.\u201d Huh?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll discuss in a moment what that attribution \u2013 meaningless to even most in health care, much less to any significant slice of the 127 million people watching the game \u2013 actually signifies. But perhaps the most salient signal of the misplaced focus of U.S. health care is that\u00a0online and media reaction<\/a>\u00a0focused exclusively on the non-profit system paying an estimated $8 million for the 30-second spot. Yet if the data actually support NYU Langone\u2019s assertion that it\u2019s \u201cthe best health system,\u201d as the ad trumpeted, shouldn\u2019t they be praised for competing on the quality of patient care rather than the quality of the\u00a0pull-on-the-emotions<\/a>\u00a0advertising typical of most hospitals?<\/p>\n

I reached out multiple times to NYU Langone and Vizient in order to dig more deeply and didn\u2019t hear back from either, so let\u2019s examine the information that\u2019s publicly available.<\/p>\n

While many Americans know of the hospital rankings by\u00a0U.S. News & World Report<\/em>, Vizient plays an insider game. Its roots are as a group purchasing organization; i.e., a membership group hospitals join to secure volume discounts on supplies and other purchases. However, Vizient has evolved to provide a heavy dose of member consulting services ; it now calls itself \u201cthe nation\u2019s leading healthcare performance improvement company.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Hospital Quality By the Numbers<\/h3>\n

An\u00a0NYU news release<\/a>\u00a0says its top ranking was based on \u201cmortality and infection rates, patient experience scores and other critical quality measures\u201d Vizient\u2019s website is a bit more expansive, saying that the measures relate to safety, mortality, effectiveness, efficiency, patient-centeredness and equity. They come from Vizient\u2019s own clinical database, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s National Healthcare Safety Network and the standardized HCAHPS patient experience surveys.<\/p>\n

That gives us more information, but not much more, than explaining that the Eagles won due to scoring more points than the Chiefs via touchdowns and field goals, while simultaneously preventing the Chiefs from scoring in a similar manner.<\/p>\n

The methodologies used by the U.S. News<\/em>\u00a0rankings and Medicare\u2019s Compare website are transparent. Vizient, on the other hand, provides no public detail about the specific measures it uses, how they\u2019re calculated and how the ultimate rankings are decided. What a query to ChatGPT tells us, however \u2013 and what I believe as a quality-of-care expert to be accurate \u2013 is that the Vizient data is more current that\u00a0U.S. News<\/em>\u00a0and Medicare and includes clinical data at the patient level.<\/p>\n

The large gap between the information insiders can see and what individuals trying to find the best possible care cannot is inadvertently emphasized even more by a different ad. A YouTube posting a year ago\u00a0touts NYU Langone\u2019s top rating<\/a>\u00a0from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons for mitral valve replacement and repair, aortic valve repair and coronary artery bypass surgery. For the small number of us who know that the STS clinical database is the \u201cgold standard\u201d of quality assessment, that\u2019s impressive.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if you try to double-check NYU Langone\u2019s claim by delving into public information, good luck finding the New York State Health Department\u2019s little-known report on cardiac care provided by individual institutions and surgeons. If you do find it, you\u2019ll see that\u00a0the latest report<\/a>, updated in June, 2023, covers the period 2017-2019. In 2019, the winner of the Super Bowl was the New England Patriots. In 2024, the Patriots matched their previous year\u2019s all-time worst record of 4-13 and finished last in their division. In essence, patients are being asked to bet their life there was no similar drop off the competence cliff by a hospital.<\/p>\n

Medicare\u2019s Compare website includes only the CABG procedure among those listed above. It says\u00a0NYU Langone\u2019s death rate<\/a>\u00a0was \u201cbetter than the national rate\u201d for the period from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023. Unfortunately, STS data is only available outside the surgical groups being graded if they choose to release it. When a relative of mine was about to undergo valve surgery, I asked a cardiologist I knew at the hospital where the surgeon practiced whether the cardiologist could give me the STS data. \u201cI can\u2019t even see it,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n

That heart surgery promotion on YouTube also declares, \u201cWe bring this same standard of care to every interaction you have with us \u2013 from checkups to emergency care to treating chronic health issues.\u201d Maybe. But even a credible ranking as \u201c#1 in quality care\u201d doesn\u2019t automatically translate to the performance of every clinical service. By way of analogy, while the Eagles as a team are now ranked first, their field goal kicker, Jake Elliott,\u00a0was ranked ninth<\/a>\u00a0among kickers in the NFL in 2024.<\/p>\n

Of course, the measures used to assess individual players in sports still inspire arguments over validity, and they\u2019re all about games (and money). Health care ratings and rankings, touching on issues of life-and-death (and money), are even more contentious. The best, like STS, rely on detailed clinical information rather than claims data. Paradoxically, those that keep negative information private, like STS and Vizient, may be most likely to collect accurate data that isn\u2019t \u201cgamed\u201d to boost the public\u2019s perception.<\/p>\n

Data Plus Culture Is the Key<\/h3>\n

As I searched for more information on NYU Langone, what impressed me most was an\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0with the assistant chief quality officer, Dr. Ilseung Cho. It began by candidly acknowledging that the organization had been in \u201cnear collapse\u201d in the mid-2000s before deciding to totally transform. Cho spoke about being personally motivated to improve quality and safety after a family member experienced a surgical site infection. \u201cWhen we were told that these infections almost never happen, that was of little consolation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Even more importantly, Cho showed he understood the crucial importance of combining deep and detailed data with an equally intense focus on organizational culture. NYU Langone utilizes a dashboard that tracks more than 800 metrics, which it calls \u201cthe most extensive in the nation.\u201d However, Cho emphasized that the key challenge is ensuring that data-driven medicine that\u2019s meant to constantly improve quality and safety remains relevant and personal to those who work on the front lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur secret sauce\u201d to improving hospital quality of care, he said, \u201cis how we engage every clinician and staff member who feels dedicated to the service of helping patients and improving care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael L. Millenson is president of Health Quality Advisors & a regular THCB Contributor<\/em>. This piece was previously in Forbes<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By MICHAEL MILLENSON When the Philadelphia Eagles thrashed the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 in Super Bowl, no one disputed that they sat at the peak of professional football. In contrast, NYU Langone Health\u2019s\u00a0multi-million-dollar Super Bowl ad\u00a0claiming \u201c#1 for quality care in the U.S.\u201d gave viewers just 2 seconds to read the very small print at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}