Ontario Considers Hospital Rankings

If adopted, the plan would give up to three stars in a number of categories to the province's 154 hospitals.

The Ontario government is considering whether to give the province's hospitals rankings in a bid to improve services at a low cost, a first in Canada. The ranking system, which would be modelled on a British experiment, would “name and shame” hospitals by handing out up to three stars in categories such as wait times, cleanliness, infection reduction, and patient treatment. Premier Dalton McGuinty's government has not yet adopted the proposal, but the system it's based on, a 2001 British trial, led to improved hospital standards and bigger deficits, as underachieving hospitals would throw money at their problems to raise their marks.