Medicare has launched a new Hospital Compare website to allow consumers to compare hospital-reported performance data on 17 measures in treatment of heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia.
Medicare head Mark McClellan told the Association of Health Care Journalists conference in North Carolina today that “this won’t ever be the government’s list of the top 100 hospitals” but that this does show that quality can differ among hospitals and "you’re not on your own anymore in researching quality."
Dick Davidson of the American Hospital Association said, "You’ll see there’s a lot of variation – some may say this isn’t a big deal – well it is a big deal. It’s time to become familiar with this data in advance of having to use it."
An AFL-CIO spokesman said this is progress after a 20-year quest to get such standardized, comparative hospital performance data. He recalled asking a Massachussetts insurer for comparative cost data years ago and was told, "that data doesn’t exist and if it did we wouldn’t give it to you.” The labor rep said this isn't the ultimate achievement of their data access goals, but it's proof that it can be done.
Posted by schwitz at April 1, 2005 11:30 AM