New Report Grades Doctors on Quality of Health Care

KPBS | By KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published March 5, 2008 at 8:17 AM PST

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

How can you tell if your doctor is at the top of their field or if their performance has been below average? We discuss a recent report that offered ratings for surgeons who performed coronary bypass

Originally aired July 17, 2007.

Alison St John (Guest Host): If you're going to buy a house, you'd probably ask around to find a good real estate agent who had a good track record. But if you're going in for coronary bypass surgery, it's been difficult, until now, to get much information on which surgeons have a good track record of performing the operation successfully, or even of how many such operations they've done.

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However, this information is now on the web, available for the savvy health care consumer to use. This month, California has put up a report listing the mortality rate of coronary artery bypass graft surgery at 120 hospitals and by over 300 doctors.

Guests

Dr. David Carlisle, director of the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development , and an associate professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Dr. Joe Scherger, communications chair of the San Diego County Medical Society and a professor in the department of family and preventive medicine and UCSD School of Medicine .