Choice of hospital can put odds against you

The two small-town hospitals could hardly be more alike. Just 20 miles apart in southern Minnesota, they're both run by the Mayo Health System and even share some of the same doctors. Yet in Albert Lea, patients hospitalized with heart failure are twice as likely to die as those in neighboring Austin, government data show...

Mayo, like Allina, had hospitals at both ends of the spectrum. "Does it really say that this hospital is inferior to that hospital? The answer is no," said Dr. Robert Lohr, an internist at the Mayo Clinic. “The statistical difference between Albert Lea and Austin can be completely chance.”

Star Tribune, by Maura Lerner, 4/18/2010