IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0107803.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

US News and World Report Cancer Hospital Rankings: Do They Reflect Measures of Research Productivity?

Author

Listed:
  • Vinay Prasad
  • Jeffrey A Goldstein

Abstract

Context: Prior research has faulted the US News and World Report hospital specialty rankings for excessive reliance on reputation, a subjective measure of a hospital's performance. Objective: To determine whether and to what extent reputation correlates with objective measures of research productivity among cancer hospitals. Design: A retrospective observational study. Setting: Automated search of NIH Reporter, BioEntrez, BioMedline and Clinicaltrials.gov databases. Participants: The 50 highest ranked cancer hospitals in 2013's US News and World Report Rankings. Exposure: We ascertained the number of NCI funded grants, and the cumulative funds received by each cancer center. Additionally, we identified the number of phase I, phase II, and phase III studies published and indexed in MEDLINE, and registered at clinicaltrials.gov. All counts were over the preceding 5 years. For published articles, we summed the impact factor of the journals in which they appeared. Trials were attributed to centers on the basis of the affiliation of the lead author or study principal investigator. Main Outcome: Correlation coefficients from simple and multiple linear regressions for measures of research productivity and a center's reputation. Results: All measures of research productivity demonstrated robust correlation with reputation (mean r-squared = 0.65, median r-squared = 0.68, minimum r-squared = .41, maximum r-squared = 0.80). A multivariable model showed that 93% of the variation in reputation is explained by objective measures. Conclusion: Contrary to prior criticism, the majority of reputation, used in US News and World Rankings, can be explained by objective measures of research productivity among cancer hospitals.

Suggested Citation

  • Vinay Prasad & Jeffrey A Goldstein, 2014. "US News and World Report Cancer Hospital Rankings: Do They Reflect Measures of Research Productivity?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(9), pages 1-6, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0107803
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0107803
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0107803
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0107803&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0107803?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pope, Devin G., 2009. "Reacting to rankings: Evidence from "America's Best Hospitals"," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1154-1165, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Junwan Liu & Rui Wang & Shuo Xu, 2021. "What academic mobility configurations contribute to high performance: an fsQCA analysis of CSC-funded visiting scholars," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1079-1100, February.
    2. Horenberg, Frank & Lungu, Daniel Adrian & Nuti, Sabina, 2020. "Measuring research in the big data era: The evolution of performance measurement systems in the Italian teaching hospitals," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(12), pages 1387-1394.
    3. Catarina Alexandra Neves Proença & Maria Elisabete Duarte Neves & Maria Castelo Baptista Gouveia & Mara Teresa Silva Madaleno, 2023. "Technological, healthcare and consumer funds efficiency: influence of COVID-19," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 1-42, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gu, Yiquan & Rasch, Alexander & Wenzel, Tobias, 2022. "Consumer salience and quality provision in (un)regulated public service markets," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Laurent Bouton, 2011. "Good rankings are bad - Why reliable rankings can hurt consumers," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2011-002, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    3. Pierre Koning & Karen Wiel, 2012. "School Responsiveness to Quality Rankings: An Empirical Analysis of Secondary Education in the Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 160(4), pages 339-355, December.
    4. Epstein, Andrew J., 2010. "Effects of report cards on referral patterns to cardiac surgeons," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 718-731, September.
    5. Florian Englmaier & Arno Schmöller & Till Stowasser, 2018. "Price Discontinuities in an Online Market for Used Cars," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 2754-2766, June.
    6. Engström, Per & Forsell, Eskil, 2018. "Demand effects of consumers’ stated and revealed preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 43-61.
    7. Daniel Avdic & Tugba Bueyuekdurmus & Giuseppe Moscelli & Adam Pilny & Ieva Sriubaite, 2018. "Subjective and objective quality reporting and choice of hospital: Evidence from maternal care services in Germany," CINCH Working Paper Series 1803, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health.
    8. Ajzenman, Nicolás & Elacqua, Gregory & Marotta, Luana & Westh Olsen, Anne Sofie, 2021. "Order Effects and Employment Decisions: Experimental Evidence from a Nationwide Program," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 11541, Inter-American Development Bank.
    9. Nicola Lacetera & Devin G. Pope & Justin R. Sydnor, 2012. "Heuristic Thinking and Limited Attention in the Car Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2206-2236, August.
    10. Boone, J. & Douven, R.C.M.H., 2014. "Provider Competition and Over-Utilization in Health Care," Discussion Paper 2014-055, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    11. Daniel W Kennedy & Jessica Cameron & Paul P -Y Wu & Kerrie Mengersen, 2021. "Peer groups for organisational learning: Clustering with practical constraints," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-20, June.
    12. Thomas Fujiwara & Carlos Sanz, 2017. "Norms in bargaining: evidence from government formation in Spain," Working Papers 1741, Banco de España.
    13. Lippi Bruni, Matteo & Ugolini, Cristina & Verzulli, Rossella, 2021. "Should I wait or should I go? Travelling versus waiting for better healthcare," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    14. Jan Boone & Rudy Douven, 2014. "Provider competition and over-utilization in health care," CPB Discussion Paper 275, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    15. Pilny, Adam & Mennicken, Roman, 2014. "Does Hospital Reputation Influence the Choice of Hospital?," Ruhr Economic Papers 516, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    16. Legge, Stefan & Schmid, Lukas, 2013. "Rankings, Random Successes, and Individual Performance," Economics Working Paper Series 1340, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    17. Weijia (Daisy) Dai & Ginger Jin & Jungmin Lee & Michael Luca, 2018. "Aggregation of consumer ratings: an application to Yelp.com," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 289-339, September.
    18. John Cawley & Alex Susskind & Barton Willage, 2020. "The Impact of Information Disclosure on Consumer Behavior: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment of Calorie Labels on Restaurant Menus," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 1020-1042, September.
    19. Puck Beukers & Ron Kemp & Marco Varkevisser, 2014. "Patient hospital choice for hip replacement: empirical evidence from the Netherlands," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(9), pages 927-936, December.
    20. repec:zbw:rwirep:0495 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Dewan, Ambuj & Neligh, Nathaniel, 2020. "Estimating information cost functions in models of rational inattention," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0107803. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.