Where Have You Gone, Banner Health?

Regular readers likely know about the Banner Health controversy (if not, you can get up to date here). In short, Banner Health is attempting to put a hospital facility in north Scottsdale, an area well-served by existing healthcare facilities already, a facility that no one at all was clamoring for. A battle was sure to be on its plate; this would certainly be an All Hands on Deck situation for its PR team, one would assume.

And yet…radio silence. Even while HonorHealth has made strides in convincing residents of the lack of necessity for this facility, Banner Health hasn’t done anything of the sort. There’s been little more than pure silence from the company as of late. What gives?

Perhaps it got spooked by a recent study from the MIT Sloan Management Review. In this metadata collection of over 150,000 reviews of 146 hospitals, the results are stark. In short, Banner ranks near the bottom and HonorHeath ranks near the top. To be more precise, HonorHealth is tied for 11st best NATIONALLY and Banner Health is tied for 18th worst nationally.

Ouch. You would assume that in the face of these criticisms, both in national surveys as well as local complaints, Banner would understand that Scottsdale isn’t in the mood for its unnecessary hospital traffic and potential strife. And yet, much like its national rankings, it is falling short.