Comparing quality of your local hospitals

Whether outside the US or inside, it is important to get objective data so that patients can make an informed decision.

The US govt’s HHS has launched an advertising campaign to make folks aware about their website. Called Hospital Compare, this website-based tool provides a comparison, with pretty good user-oriented search flexibility.

 here’s a sample:

Top Hospitals 97%     Average For All Reporting Hospitals In The United States    79%  Average For All Reporting Hospitals In California    73%  KAISER FOUNDATION HOSPITAL - SANTA CLARA    92%  STANFORD HOSPITAL    87%  WASHINGTON HOSPITAL    67%           Top Hospitals represents the top 10% of hospitals nationwide. Top hospitals achieved a 97% rate or better.

 Be careful, though, as the reported data can be easily mis-interpreted by a lay person. If you look at the data, get a qualified person to help you understand the differences. Also, some/most of the information may be somewhat dated (thru 2007) and in fairness to Quality professionals, all hospitals are continuously engaged in improving to the extent possible.

Finally, this gives a picture of some parameters regarding hospitals’ performance, there are many many other aspects that you cannot capture here.

This entry was posted on May 21, 2008 at 14:10 and is filed under Reporting, Quality, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.