2 Michigan Cities Among Nation’s Leaders In Health Care

A new report has ranked Lansing and Grand Rapids among the best in the country for health care. Healthgrades, which helps consumers find and schedule appointments with health care providers, on Tuesday released its 2019 National Health Index, which aims to evaluate which cities are getting health care right.

The cities were ranked based on four categories: access to care, population health, hospital quality and local specialists. Lansing, according to the authors, ranked No. 25 in the country and Grand Rapids ranked No. 48.

Here’s what the authors had to say:

Michigan's capital is also a leading city for health, landing in the top 20 for both hospital quality and access to care, including screenings such as colonoscopy. This no doubt helps Lansing residents stick to healthy lifestyle habits like getting regular exercise and maintaining a normal weight, boosting the city's population health score. One area to grow: the availability of highly rated local specialists.

With a booming craft brewery scene, Grand Rapids is becoming known as Beer City USA. But the city also gets cheers for good healthcare, ranking in the top 15 for access to care, including a low impact of cost on the ability to see a doctor. Grand Rapids locals also take advantage of the area's kayaking, hiking and bicycling to maintain excellent population health. One area to grow: increasing the availability of highly rated local specialists.

The city doing health care the best is Rochester, Minnesota. The authors called Rochester, which has a population of just over 218,000, a “small town with a big presence for quality health care.” The city earned the the highest ranking in both hospital quality and local specialists. Nearly half of its hospitals have 5-star ratings for multiple procedures and conditions, while residents maintain a normal weight and exercise regularly.

Here are the top 10 cities, according to Healthgrades:

1. Rochester, Minnesota
2. Burlington, Vermont
3. Charleston, South Carolina
4. Cincinnati, Ohio
5. Baltimore, Maryland
6. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
7. Gainesville, Florida
8. Hartford, Connecticut
9. San Jose, California
10. Cleveland, Ohio

The index found that San Francisco was the healthiest of all cities on the list, and Worcester, Massachusetts, ranked highest in access to health care.

The index looked at more than a dozen variables and grouped them into four health care categories: 1) whether the residents of each city were healthy overall, 2) if consumers had access to health care, 3) if local specialists achieved high marks in patient satisfaction and physician count per capita and 4) if patients had access to high-quality hospitals. The last category is based on Healthgrades’ own hospital quality analysis.

Archelle Georgiou, MD, senior advisor to Healthgrades, said in a release that it’s not easy to judge whether a city is getting health care right. For this reason, numerous industry data sets were used to help paint a more complete picture of health care at the local level.

“The National Health Index is designed to help consumers understand the health of their community, to empower them to navigate their care journey with confidence and to help them access the right care in their market,” said Georgiou.

The index is based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provider specialty information and patient experience survey scores, the U.S. Census Bureau and Healthgrades 2019 award year hospital quality ratings.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

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