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Feds Rank Texas Worst Healthcare Provider

(Todd Ackerman & Alexa Walczak,
Houston Chronicle)

Texas ranked dead last in the federal government’s latest report card on the delivery of health services, falling short in areas ranging from acute hospital care to home treatment of the chronically ill.

Texas scored 31.61 – less than half of top-ranked Minnesota’s 67.31 – out of a possible 100 points in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality annual rankings. Rated “weak” or “very weak” in nine of 12 health delivery categories, Texas dropped from 47th place in 2010 to 51st in 2011, behind all other states and Washington, D.C.

“There are a lot of places Texas can make improvements,” said Dr. Ernest Moy, the federal agency’s medical officer and the scorecard’s lead author.

“We’re not comparing it to some fantasy world, we’re comparing it to other states around the nation.”  Moy downplayed Texas’ fall from 2010, noting that Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas tend to fluctuate near the bottom of the annual scorecard.
(Read the full story at the Houston Chronicle)

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