Mortality

Mortality continues to be an area of intense focus at Palmetto Health. We track and trend mortality through use of the Hospital Standardized Mortality Ratio (HSMR). The HSMR method uses Medicare-only data and calculates a ratio of total observed deaths to total expected deaths.

When we began to track mortality data in 2006, Palmetto Health adopted a goal of reducing system-wide mortality by 20 percent in three years. In 2006 Palmetto Health's HSMR was at 99.4. By the end of calendar year 2008, HSMR was reduced by 28 percent.


Each Palmetto Health hospital measures its own mortality.