Consumers can find services all over the web that offer ratings and reports for doctors and hospitals. Interesting fact: all of the data they base these ratings on comes from the same source – US government Medicare data. You might be surprised to know that information about privately insured patients is never released.
The problem with online services is that they provide ballpark information. (Example: a hospital performs Above Average, Below Average, or Average.) If hospitals don’t want their performance revealed to the public they can opt out, presumably for a price. (Ever wonder about all those n/a’s in hospital ratings reports?)
Our advice to healthcare consumers: Get actual performance numbers. The US Department of Health and Human Services recently posted their collected data online for public viewing. The American Hospital Association had a conniption fit over it, but HHS did it anyway. About time. The explanitory pages for using this data are contained in this Glossary. To look up hospitals in your area, go to the Hospital Compare page. While you’re there be sure to check the sidebar for updates.
Our other favorite resource for gauging hospital performance comes from a team of reporters from USA Today. In 2008, Anthony DeBarros and Steve Sternberg released the first ever public report of the Medicare data collected by the government. This information is exhaustive, so they took the top three conditions that healthcare industry leaders agree reflect the overall quality of care provided by a hospital. They published their findings for every hospital in the country, and added an interactive map so you can compare performance with other hospitals in your town or across the country.
As of last year, Team DeBarros/Sternberg added William Couch, Joshua Hatch, Lou Schilling, Jack Gillum and Glenn O’Neal to the effort. They also expanded their report to US territories and specialty hospitals. USA TODAY’s Compare Hospitals Report is our favorite tool for getting fast, understandable, and user-friendly information. New comprehensive reports are released every August, but the data is updated throughout the year. Just shows you what a handful of dedicated people can do when they put their minds to a problem.
States are struggling to put their own hospital performance data online. However, hospitals are stalling and most of the data eventually released to the public at the state level is heavily redacted and 5 to 10 years old. The two sites listed above are your best source of accurate, spin-free, timely data.
UPDATE June 28, 2011: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation today introduced a new interactive website which reveals – by state – all publicly available information for doctors and hospitals. Some of it is a little ponderous, but this is a great tool for easily comparing and identifying states (or areas within a state) that are making an attempt at transparency. Follow this link to the new RWJF site.
