Opinion: Let’s rank hospitals by the quality of their end-of-life care

Hospitals are obsessed with being No. 1. And about the only thing that matters to them even more than that is letting everyone know they are No. 1 via billboards, television and radio ads, the internet, and more. While hospitals are happy to boast that they are helping their patients live a good life, none of them are yet boasting “We’re No. 1 in helping our patients have a good death.” They should be doing just that.

Not long ago, physicians could offer little more than a prayer when a patient died. When a patient’s heart stops today, the hospital staff can employ an array of potentially death-stopping — even death-reversing — interventions such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, cardiac defibrillation, blood circulation with artificial pumps, and a plethora of medications.

Now that death has. That preference is at odds with reality — most Americans in health care facilities. Research I with two colleagues showed that only one-third of U.S. residents with heart disease die at home.