The Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) awarded a $5.2 million contract to IBM to build a Web site that will offer consumers comparative data on hospital and physician performance and costs so they can make better choices about health care services.
DCH Commissioner Dr. Rhonda Medows said the site will “help put some control in the hands of the patient and the health care consumer.”
Officials plan to launch the site this fall. It will provide information on hospitals’ and individual clinicians’ rates of success, safety and complication on various procedures; hospital infection rates; lengths of stay; pricing; physical rehabilitation options; and the customer service ratings of hospitals and other health care facilities.
The site will be open to all health care consumers in Georgia, including Medicaid recipients, state employees and people without insurance. It will also offer information from the Mayo Clinic on diseases and treatment options.
“If people are able to make choices around their treatment based on good information and then plan for their episodes of care, they are less likely to be unaware of what’s going to come and be unprepared for it,” Medows said.
The project involved two years of research, including setting up a Transparency Advisory Council and conducting a number of focus groups.
“Hopefully, if [consumers] feel more in control, they’ll take a more active stance in making sure that they get the care they need when they need it, instead of putting it off and letting things worsen to the point that it turns into acute or urgent or emergency care,” Medows said.
Georgia lawmakers passed legislation in 2007 giving DCH the authority to request data from hospitals, physicians and other health care providers. But Medows said DCH didn’t want to create an administrative burden for hospitals so instead is developing memoranda of understanding with state, federal and private-sector entities that gather key data. For example, the Georgia Office of Regulatory Services collects data on adverse events and complications at hospitals, while Medicare can provide some customer satisfaction data on hospitals.
“There are just so many sources that are available already,” Medows said. “The most important thing is that we are pulling all those sources together and putting it into a format that consumers can understand and make decisions on.”
However, health care providers and hospitals will not be allowed to post their own information on the site. “We’re trying to avoid having it turned into any kind of marketing forum,” she said.
After the site is launched, DCH’s Transparency Advisory Council will continue to meet and conduct consumer focus groups to evaluate the site’s performance and content.
“This is not something that you put in place and let it be,” Medows said. “It will have to evolve over time so it can be as effective as possible.”
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.
