“In Chicago’s case, however, almost every specialty has fallen precipitously over the past 5-10 years. Neuro, diabetes, gastro, etc. etc…”
- Rankings can change rapidly, as we've seen on the college scene and with the professional schools (Booth, to name one). Hospitals are no different once they find they are being ranked, especially if there is lots of money involved as a result of a change. The question is, should UChicago Med have held or even improved its rankings, would that have changed the funding? It's a good question. I simply don't recall much aggressive adverting on the part of UChicago Med. compared to other health systems (but I haven't lived in the area for awhile either - maybe things have changed?). Living in MN, I see a lot of advertising from UMN, from Abbott, from Mayo (Mayo has a national campaign!). The entire industry is one big marketing campaign. Is that happening with UChicago? We KNOW that the college has aggressively advertised and Booth was on a rankings campaign since year one (of the rankings - I was there. I remember). Certainly various parts of the place are quite capable of ratcheting up the advertising. The med center seems a bit sleepy by comparison. There's gotta be a reason for that.
“Further, what’s surprising is that the hospital rankings from 2003 to 2017 are remarkably consistent - the 2003 ranking had most of the same hospitals as the 2017 rankings. Moreover, schools that have fallen off the 2003 ranking (like Vanderbilt - a smaller medical system) are still quite close to where they were 12-15 years ago. So in 2003, Vandy was ranked at the bottom of the top 20, with 8 or 9 specialties with national standing, and in 2017, they had 7 specialties in national standing - not much of a difference.”
Vandy is not that small a medical center. Sure, the med school is about the same size as Pritzker’s. And the hospital has approximately the same # of docs. But it has 40% more beds and 30% additional nursing staff. It’s a larger stand-alone entity. Again, size is rewarded. Furthermore, who are Vandy’s hospital competitors? Most of them aren’t highly ranked in much of anything. Very different from a NU, or a Rush.
“Further, smaller systems that did well 10 years ago (like Vandy) are still doing well now (they’re still #1 in TN, and are probably in the top 20-25 hospital systems in the country, a small drop of 3 places over 10 years).”
- Chicago ain't Nashville, Knoxville or Chattanooga. Bigger market and a lot of hospital competition.