Hospital Compare

Over the past few months I have repeatedly said we need to make health care more value-driven. Of course, what I mean is that patients need information that helps them make better health care decisions. Specifically, comparative cost and quality of the care they purchase.

Friday (March 28) I unveiled a new Hospital Compare Web site. It will make it easier for consumers and their families to get accurate, practical information when they need to evaluate their local hospitals.

Take a look that it. I would appreciate getting your reaction. (Hospital Compare Web site)

The site assembles basic quality information collected from 2,500 hospitals and compares a series of quality measures, not only indicators of quality, but also price.

Look up hospitals in your area. Some of the data won’t surprise you much, other parts will. In your comments, I’d appreciate hearing if you were surprised in any way about the comparative quality of hospitals in your area.

This is a significant step forward, but my aspirations are higher in terms of the quantity, quality and accessibility of data. During the press conference announcing the release, I said if this were a video game it would resemble the first game I ever played, Pong, more than state-of-the art software like Nintendo’s Wii game. However, we’re making progress fast.

It is my expectation that hospitals all over America will be looking at how they compare and plotting strategies for improvement. People want to provide quality, but they need to know how they compare as a measure. The release of this data and its continual improvement will spur improvement.

So, tell me what you think.

Comments

Very useful site based on a quick review. It could have been designed to allow comparison of severeal hospitals in ove search to make it more effective. A good start nevertheless.

One quick observation after checking three local hospitals is how low the scores for quiet around the rooms is. Best part is that the scores are based on patient questionnaires. But the weakness is that questions are not specific to admission diagnosis. For example, pain control is usually not an important component of diabetes care. It would have been very useful to ask "How well were you educated about diabetes self-care?" to a patient who is admitted with uncontrolled diabetes (new or old). Hopefully the site will improve with time and outside input.

Posted by: Arvind Cavale | April 01, 2008 at 08:40 PM

Governor Leavitt,

After looking over the new website I am pleased with the quality measures and comparisons. I am a firm believer in transparency and an educated and informed public. I do have significant concerns with the data on "price" that has been displayed. Quoting the amount Medicare pays a hospital for any given DRG as the "price" of that service is grossly misleading.

Most non-healthcare professionals likely do not know that Medicare pays hospitals on a fixed fee basis. Those fees differ between facilities based on a number of factors. They do not, however, reflect the price of services as billed by any particular hospital. Hospitals have very little control over what they are paid by Medicare and that amount is certainly not what a patient with private insurance or no insurance at all will be billed following a hospital stay. In addition, many hospitals with lower consumer prices may receive larger payments from Medicare than higher priced facilities based on location and other factors. The poorly communicated information on this website may serve to lead customers to the higher priced facilities based on perceptions driven by their lower Medicare reimbursement.

While these details are briefly explained under one of many links, the average consumer will neither find nor understand this critical information.

In order to avoid confusion and thousands of angry patients who believe they have been over-billed, CMS must either change the data or at the very least, quit referring to it as the "price" on blogs and websites.

Thank you for your efforts to improve healthcare in our country.

Chris G.

Posted by: Chris | April 01, 2008 at 09:19 PM

I'm new to this... please forgive if misdirected.

I am a cardiologist with extensive practice experience, now in academic practice.

A year ago a major player in US health insurance announced a proposed "Institute for Comparative Effectiveness Research" (ICER) prompted by observations that, “across our country today, far too much care is simply ineffective, inappropriate, redundant, unsafe, inconsistent, and poorly cost-effective.”

I have highly innovative methods of managing 2 major aspects of cardiac care. These methods SUBSTANTIALLY enhance the "effectiveness/cost-effectiveness, appropriateness, safety, and consistency" of managing these conditions. Yes, they do just that.

I approached the person making the ICER announcement and another in the health insurance industry.

"Not interested."

Is there anyone in our healthcare system ready to take action beyond mere rhetoric on these major health care shortfalls?

If so, can you let me know who s/he/they are and how to reach them?

Posted by: APJ | April 02, 2008 at 01:11 PM

Information on comparing hosptials, health systems is imperative to empower the consumer and educate them so they can make the right decision. We have noted such site(s) in our company blog and in our newspaper which is geared for the over 65 population. The issue we find is that this population grew up at a time when doctors and hospitals were never to be questioned. Their faith and trust in these and other health related professionals, providers is relentless. Just now, as more and more of the aging population become more tech savvy, are they feeling more empowered, more in control of their health decisions. Still, they live in fear (according to our recent survey) of changes in Medicare and rising health care costs.

Posted by: Nancy Belle | April 03, 2008 at 10:11 AM

Oh, I like this.

It looks like a good start, and it seems like it would be useful. Especially for people who actually did want to compare things.

I wonder, though, how will people know to check the site? People's doctors probably wouldn't tell them about it (especially if their hospitals were not ranked favorably), and although I'm sure a lot of people have many operations and know to shop around and look for these sorts of things, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who only need one surgery and wouldn't think to look for something like this. Especially elderly people or disadvantaged people, who probably use the Internet less.

Also, I think it would be good if the button to compare stuff were bigger and more obvious. Because at first glance, it kind of blends in with everything else.

Anyway, thanks for sharing it.

Posted by: Emily | April 06, 2008 at 08:33 PM

I think this is an interesting concept. I think it would be valuable to compare hospitals and organizations using health technology to those who are not. I recently read a book called "How Doctors Think." The book focuses on the position and how the Physician's main purpose is to diagnose and he discusses things they get in the way and things that help and had improved communication between patient and Physician to make health care work better.

http://ehrupdates.blogspot.com/

Posted by: David H. Smith | April 16, 2008 at 04:17 PM