A comprehensive health care study shows that hospitals and HMOs in New York State measure well against national averages in certain quality measures, but that there are vast disparities in cost and patient care between counties and institutions.

On average, New York hospitals gave antibiotics correctly 81% of the time. In the Bronx, though, rates ranged between 65% and 96%, according to the study published yesterday by the New York State Health Accountability Foundation, a public-private partnership founded by the New York Business Group on Health, and a health care evaluation corporation, IPRO. The study, which examined HMOs in New York and New Jersey and hospitals in New York, can be found at abouthealthquality.org.

Overall, the study shows that New York hospitals performed as well as, or better than, the national average on 16 out of 20 quality measures. HMOs performed as well as, or better than, the national average on 19 out of 23 measures. However, in Manhattan, a patient experiencing chest pain at Metropolitan Hospital Center may stay in the hospital an average of 2.25 days at a cost of $6,428.15. The same patient treated at Lenox Hill Hospital may stay an average of 1.79 days at a cost of $22,070.64. In Brooklyn, the rate of mothers undergoing Caesarean sections was 34.25% at New York Methodist Hospital, compared with 17.4% at Maimonides Medical Center. In addressing the disparities, the executive director of the New York Business Group on Health, Laurel Pickering, said yesterday: “I think we need to get the data out there in the public and start the conversation about why we see such great differences.”

A spokesman for the Greater New York Hospital Association, Brian Conway, said his group welcomed any resource that could improve patient safety or the quality of care, but he cautioned that hospital report cards have certain limitations. “It only tells a snapshot story. It doesn’t give you the full picture of what a hospital is doing to improve quality,” he said.