Having good doctors is essential, and having them all associated with the same hospital is ideal.  We found that communication began to flow once we selected a new team of doctors who were all at the same hospital.  

They consulted each other about important decisions.  Each time our dad was admitted to the hospital, which was often, we didn’t have to start all over again with new doctors and once again explain his medical history.  Also, it was vitally important that the doctors he saw inside the hospital were the same doctors he saw when he was home.  Creating consistency will help to minimize mistakes.  

Here are some ideas to ensure competency, communication and consistency:

1. Find the best hospital in your area (a teaching hospital would be great) and choose doctors associated with that hospital.  If you have a single medical issue, and a specific doctor you want to see, the hospital may not be as important.  But we found that because our dad, like many elderly patients, had several serious conditions, it was more effective to choose the hospital first, and then find the appropriate doctors at that facility.  It cuts down on mistakes and miscommunications to have all the doctors affiliated with the same place.
2. Ask doctors and nurses you trust for recommendations.
3. Spend a few minutes at HealthGrades.com, a site devoted to the backgrounds of doctors across the country.  You can get a more detailed report with a payment of $12.95, but even without the fee, there is some valuable information there.
4. This is what we did:  We asked one of the doctors we respected to recommend a new team.  He was kind enough to write a letter to each specialist, all of whom were associated with the same hospital, and ask that they take our dad on as a patient.  We finally had a medical team we trusted.