Summary: Quality rankings are hard to find in health care. Here’s a good resource for New York State, documenting infection rates for various procedures in 2013, hospital by hospital — though it’s hardly user-friendly: “Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) result in prolonged hospital stays, unnecessary deaths, increased antimicrobial resistance, greater healthcare costs, and added emotional and personal costs to patients and their families. This report summarizes HAI rates in New York State (NYS) hospitals in 2013. It is the seventh annual report to be issued since reporting began in 2007 following the implementation of Public Health Law 2819. All NYS HAI reports are available at https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/facilities/hospital/hospital_acquired_infections/. These data are available for download at https://health.data.ny.gov/. .

Jeanne Pinder  is the founder and CEO of ClearHealthCosts. She worked at The New York Times for almost 25 years as a reporter, editor and human resources executive, then volunteered for a buyout and founded...