business
Ohio launches hospital comparison Web site
■ Consumers will be able to view more than 100 quality measures for each hospital, as well as cost information.
By Bob Cook — Posted Jan. 14, 2010
Four years after a state law mandated its creation, a Web site carrying performance information about Ohio hospitals premiered online on Jan. 1.
The site, Ohio Hospital Compare, allows consumers to study hospitals based on more than 100 performance measures (link).
The site is hosted by the Ohio Dept. of Health, which from April 2007 to April 2009 required hospitals to report semiannual data on six quality measures related to heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia. The information was posted on the department's Web site.
The new site will have more performance measures and will let consumers compare measures hospital to hospital, the health department said. Cost data will be available, but it won't be in a package similar to the quality data until the end of 2010. The data would not include any discounts negotiated by insurers.
Among the quality measures are mortality and infection rates. The site lists how often specific medical procedures are performed at a hospital, and whether it has a hand-washing program for its staff. The Web site, which also gives details such as whether patients were smokers, begins with first- and second-quarter 2008 data submitted by hospitals by Oct. 1, 2009.
Other states have similar sites. The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services has a hospital comparison tool that looks at performance for Medicare patients (link). Numerous privately run organizations also have established their own hospital comparison Web sites.
Backers of the sites say they allow patients to make informed decisions on the best place for their care.
