A Valuable Web-based Tool For Us All
Several years ago the topic of one of my ADVANCE for Imaging and Radiation Therapy Professionals articles was a hypothetical "eBay for Healthcare." In that column I described how potentially useful a feedback feature would be for patients to be able to learn about how previous patients were treated by a particular healthcare facility or provider.
Here is a snippet of what I wrote:
One of the most useful aspects of the auction site... is the "feedback" section. Here, buyers and sellers can indicate, in 80 characters or less, their experience with a deal. For example, sellers can indicate how quickly the payment was received and buyers can indicate if the item was accurately described in the listing. Also, before placing a bid on an item, prospective bidders can review the seller's feedback left by previous buyers to determine if the seller has a good or bad track record. ... The feedback component contributes to each party being held accountable for their actions on the auction site.
Well, it appears that the hypothetical scenario I described back in 2003 has become a reality. The federal government recently launched the Hospital Compare Website where patients can describe their hospital experiences and read about the experiences of others. The site is designed to help patients compare the quality of care hospitals provide and empower them to make educated decisions.
There are several useful sections on the site, including a survey results section where patients can read what other patients say about the care they received in a hospital. There are also dedicated sections that describe patients' rights and a "Hospital Checklist" that includes questions that prospective patients should consider before they go to the hospital. Other areas provide information that hospitals voluntarily submit from their own medical records about the treatments their patients received. You can search for and compare hospitals based on certain conditions or procedures, as well as by geographical locations.
Hospital Compare was created through the efforts of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA). It includes data that was collected by hospitals from a random sample of patients between October 2006 and June 2007. The amount of data provided is quite impressive, and it can take some time to navigate through it all to in order to get the answers you are seeking. This isn't surprising given that the site was developed by the federal government (if you've ever tried to obtain information about government grants or visited other ".gov" sites you'll know what I mean).
While I would like to take credit for coming up with the concept of such a patient-advocate site (do you think some CMS bureaucrat read my eBay article in ‘03?), I suspect it was born as a logical and worthwhile tool to allow the public to determine how well a particular hospital is doing and to enable them to make educated healthcare choices.
An obvious additional benefit to us all (as former or future patients) is that hospitals will need to constantly improve their quality of care or risk receiving "bad feedback" and lose both their reputation within the community as well as future patients' business. I would encourage you to take a look at the website--if not now--then definitely when you or a loved one needs to choose a hospital.