About Us: Quality

Life Saving Care

Many patients admitted to Stanford Hospital & Clinics are very sick with complicated medical conditions that decrease their chances for survival.  The "mortality ratio" compares patients' actual mortality rates to their expected mortality rates—which take into account the severity of a patient's illness.  A lower score mortality ratio means that more patients survived than were expected due to the severity of their illnesses.

Mortality ratio: October 2007 – September 2008

What this graph says

Our mortality ratio is excellent, particularly given the number of severely ill, high-risk patients at Stanford Hospital & Clinics.  Stanford Hospital & Clinics' mortality ratio between October 2007– September 2008 was 0.83 (red bar).

Our mortality ratio is below the benchmark of 0.93 (yellow bar).

Mortality ratio trended over time

What this graph says

This graph shows mortality ratios for the past two years. Stanford Hospital and Clinics (red bar) has consistently performed at or lower than the benchmark (yellow bar) and significantly better than the standard (blue bar) where observed mortality equals the expected rate.

Explaining mortality ratio

Mortality ratios are quality data that compare patients' actual vs. expected mortality rates, based on patients' illnesses.

Mortality ratio = Observed mortality / Expected mortality

Observed mortality is the number of patient deaths that occur in the hospital.

Expected mortality is the predicted number of deaths in the hospital based on the hospital's patients' levels of illness. Patients who are very sick (higher severity of illness) have a higher expected mortality rate. However, the expected mortality rate does not reflect a hospital's quality of care. If two hospitals had patients with exactly the same severity of illnesses, the hospitals' expected mortality rates would be the same.

The standard ratio of 1.0 indicates that the observed mortality rate equaled the expected mortality rate based on patients' level of illness.