The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has enhanced its Hospital Compare Web site, adding results of surveys of patients about their care, plus data on pricing and the volume of elective procedures at the hospitals.
The site already displayed information on how hospitals measure up with respect to 26 quality indicators.
“Medicare beneficiaries tell us that just like the information they receive about other products and services they consume, they want to know what their neighbors are saying about the care they received while in the hospital; they want to know how much it costs; and they want to know about the quality of that care. We are now sharing that information,” acting CMS Administrator Kerry Weems said in a statement.
Hospital Compare’s information on patient satisfaction comes from the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Hospital Survey, known as HCAHPS. It is the first national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patient perspectives on the care they received during a hospital stay.
More than 2,500 hospitals nationwide have been collecting information from a random sample of discharged patients who were treated for a wide range of conditions between October 2006 and June 2007. These patients were asked to rate the hospital overall and specific aspects of their care such as the hospital’s cleanliness and their communications with doctors.
CMS worked with the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and with support from members of the Hospital Quality Alliance to develop the HCAHPS survey.
The consumer satisfaction data will be updated quarterly, and data from most hospitals in the nation will appear on the site by the end of the year, CMS officials said.
The pricing information for certain procedures comes from records of what the agency paid the hospitals. The price information does not reflect what consumers pay for their care. It also shows how often the hospitals performed the procedures for Medicare patients.
Besides helping patients make decisions about which hospitals they will use, the site also may help doctors choose where to refer their patients. In addition, the hospitals get feedback on their performance in comparison to their peers.
CMS officials said they will add an outcome measure on pneumonia deaths to Hospital Compare this summer, along with more details on mortality from heart attacks and heart failure.
From the battlefield to the home front: Managing medical data
Government Health IT presents Col. Claude Hines Jr., program manager for the Defense Health Information Management System, in this recent InSight eSeminar. Col. Hines discusses the health information technology and tactical challenges faced by the military medical community in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict. In doing so, he describes the current information technology solutions for transferring clinical data between battlefield care givers to health care personnel at military treatment facilities worldwide.
