But here's the thing: while a broken ankle may not be routine for you, it is routine for pretty much any orthopedist. It's simply not sustainable to have every

But here's the thing: while a broken ankle may not be routine for you, it is routine for pretty much any orthopedist. It's simply not sustainable to have every person in the NY metro area all want to go to the same hospital when they break their ankle. But if you want to understand the real problem, ask yourself by what criteria is the "foremost orthopedic hospital" considered better? I know this will sound insane, but most medical quality metrics for hospitals and doctors don't take patient outcomes into account. Due to a combination of HIPAA rules and the way follow-up care is often performed by practitioners from multiple hospitals/private practices/therapists, it's nearly impossible to track patient outcomes even if you wanted to. So if the quality of a hospital isn't determined by patient outcomes, what is it determined by? The government uses a combination of patient volume, malpractice claims, accident rate, rate of hospital acquired infections, cost efficiency, scheduling availability and survey data (they're more concerned about cost effectiveness as it relates to Medicare than anything else). For any other source, the hospital probably just paid a bunch of money to be listed in the top spot on a "top orthopedic hospitals" list.