Hospitals often debate hospital rankings based on patient mortality rates, specifically which hospital is accountable for a death if multiple facilities care for that patient. For example, if a patient moves from an emergency room at a smaller hospital to a larger hospital and dies within 30 days, who is responsible? The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Hospital Compare attributes a patient death to the hospital receiving a transferred patient unless the patient was first admitted to the smaller hospital, reports the Winston-Salem Journal, whereas U.S. News & World Report attributes the death to the first hospital.
"When rates are risk-adjusted, it means that hospitals that usually take care of sicker patients won't have a worse rate just because their patients were sicker when they arrived at the hospital," Medicare said. Article