The purpose of this report is to provide parents with a decision rule for deciding which hospital to go to for a procedure given the specific condition of their children. To address this question, we examine the mortality rate for each procedure type in a hospital. Specifically, we fit a Bayesian joint model of mortality rates and hospital volumes to estimate the mortality rates by hospital and procedure. After ranking the hospital performances for the given procedures, we find that Texas Children’s Hospital, UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital and Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital are the best hospitals for pediatric cardiovascular procedures. In addition to having good predictive output, our ranking system allows for us to quantify the uncertainty surrounding parameter and ranking estimates, allowing us to rigorously conclude that our findings are significant.

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