PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island is the third-best state in the nation for health care, according to a study by Forbes Advisor.
The inaugural report compared all 50 states across 24 metrics over four categories: health care access, health care outcomes, health care cost and quality of hospital care. Each category was measured on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 representing the worst performance in that category.
Rhode Island finished with an overall score of 4.45, scoring 0 for health care access, 11.83 for health outcomes score, 62.91 for health care cost and 75.26 for quality of hospital care.
Rhode Island ranked first in health care access. In this category the Ocean State had the highest number of primary care physicians at 25.89 per 10,000 state residents; highest percentage of needs met in primary care provider shortage areas at 72.13%, Third-highest number of specialist physicians at 26.85 per 10,000 state residents, fourth-lowest percentage of residents who lack health insurance coverage 4.34%, fourth-highest number of critical care physicians 0.91 per 10,000 adults and the fifth-highest number of physician assistants at 6.02 per 10,000 state residents.
Rhode Island also ranked fifth best for health care outcomes. In this category, the state had the third-lowest stroke mortality rate at 27.47 deaths per 100,000 state residents; The eighth-lowest chronic lower respiratory disease mortality rate at 30.03 deaths per 100,000 state residents; and ninth-lowest rate of diabetes deaths at 20.33 deaths per 100,000 state residents.
Minnesota was the top state for health care, according to the report, scoring 80.87 for health care access, 68.70 for health care outcomes, 94.04 for health care cost score and 76.42 for quality of hospital care score.
Among the data, Minnesota ranked second best in health care outcomes due, in part, to the state having the fourth-lowest rate of both influenza and pneumonia deaths at 7.03 per 100,000 state residents) and kidney disease deaths at 7.37 per 100,000 state residents.
Massachusetts is ranked the second-best state for health care. The Bay State ranked third for assessing health care access and was seventh best for assessing health care outcomes.
Connecticut was fourth and Vermont was fifth, according to the study.
Georgia was the worst state for health care, according to the study. That state ranked third worst in health care cost, due, in part, to the state having the second-highest percentage of residents who chose not to see a doctor at some point in the past 12 months due to cost at 15.50%.
Alabama, North Carolina, Mississippi and South Carolina rounded out the bottom five.
The full report can be found
here.
