Now online for all to see: A Web site that reveals, through straightforward talk and graphs, how hospitals across the country stack up in treating three critical medical conditions.
Heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia are the windows that Hospital Compare opens so consumers can judge the level of care that institutions in their community provide. As its name suggests, the Web site intends the data to be used to compare institutions -- and to improve the quality of care in the process.
The effort is a collaboration of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the industry and an alliance of organizations intent on raising standards. Nearly 4,200 hospitals nationwide, or 98 percent of the total, volunteered data on 17 measures involving adult patients.
What percentage of heart attack patients, for example, receive an aspirin upon arriving at a given hospital? Or what percentage of patients with pneumonia receive an antibiotic within four hours of walking through its doors?
Or what percentage of patients suffering from heart failure undergo assessment of their left ventricular function at that hospital? And what does the test do, and why is it important?
The answers now are just a couple computer clicks away on www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.
"We're hoping patients go to their doctors and say, 'Hey, what does this mean?' " Tim Hock, of the centers' Division of Survey and Certification, explained at the Web site's official District debut on Monday.
"Patients will ask questions. Doctors will ask questions," echoed Carlos Silva, medical director at George Washington University Hospital. "And the hospitals will demonstrate what they can or cannot do."
The Web site follows the launch 18 months ago of similar online reporting on nursing home care. Users can search by geographic location or an institution's name. At the least, the results of a search include state and national averages; at the most, they also show the numbers for every hospital in the designated jurisdiction.
The three hospitals in Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties participated in the survey, but in some of the categories the Web site cautions against direct comparisons because of the low number of patients in the samples from Calvert Memorial Hospital, Civista Medical Center and St. Mary's Hospital.
The data show that three of the six hospitals in Prince George's County exceed state and national averages in the percentage of heart attack patients handed an aspirin upon arrival, with Fort Washington Hospital reporting 100 percent.
In Fairfax County, no hospital bests both the Virginia and U.S. averages in the percentage of pneumonia patients who get an early antibiotic -- with two hospitals, Inova Fairfax and Reston Hospital Center, falling far short.
"Why is this Important?" the Web site asks in its accompanying text. "Antibiotics are used to treat adults with pneumonia caused by bacteria. Early treatment with antibiotics can cure bacterial pneumonia and reduce the possibility of complications."
Such numbers on measurable criteria afford patients far better information than typically has been available in choosing a hospital. "We never had that," D.C. resident Ethel Jeannette Hackney, speaking for consumers, told the audience at the District's presentation this week. "But don't be hard on your doctors. They didn't have it either."
Hospital Compare also offers a checklist of questions patients can ask their physicians to help gauge hospital quality, direction on how patients can complain about the level of their care, and links to numerous health-related organizations. The data should be updated quarterly, officials said, and expanded. In coming months, the site will add surgical infection rates. Later, patient perspectives may be incorporated; risk-adjusted outcomes of procedures could be added also.
"This is one beginning for providing this information to consumers," explained Trent Haywood of the federal centers' Office of Clinical Standards and Quality. But he acknowledged the service's inherent limitations in certain circumstances: "If you're having a heart attack, it's a little too late to go to the Web site."
