Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

TOPEKA — A federal website intended to help consumers figure out which hospital best meets their needs has been expanded to include data on the quality of outpatient care.

Previously, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Hospital Compare website focused only on inpatient care.

The new data measures how well emergency rooms have responded to heart attacks, how well surgical departments prevent infections, and whether outpatient units might be overusing their imaging equipment.

The data is taken from Medicare reports submitted by more than 4,700 hospitals, large and small, from July 2006 to June 2009.

“Our goal here is not to label hospitals as good or bad, but it's to provide insight to the hospitals as well as the general public on what they are achieving in the care that they render,” Dr. Barry Straube, chief medical officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said Wednesday during a conference call with members of the Association of Health Care Journalists.

“Our ultimate goal is to achieve universally safe, effective and efficient care for all Americans, not just Medicare beneficiaries,” Straube said.

Acting CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner noted that prior to adding the new data, the Hospital Compare website averaged “more than a million page views a month,” making it the agency’s most used website.

The website allows consumers to type in their city or ZIP code and request information on hospitals in their area or region.

Initially, comparisons are limited to three hospitals. Others, however, may be added in subsequent queries.

Wichita Business Coalition on Health Care Executive Director Ron Whiting spent a few hours perusing some of the new information Wednesday.

“I think it would be difficult for someone to make a health care decision based on what’s here,” Whiting said, “but that said, it ought to be reviewed. It ought to be used as a basis for asking questions of providers.”

He warned that much of the new information is “loaded with caveats” that may make some comparisons invalid.

“This information is directional,” he said. “By that I means it’s process oriented rather than outcomes oriented, the assumption being that if a hospital ‘does the following things, it will provide better care.’ But the relationship between process and outcomes isn’t always one-to-one.

“I would suggest that if a hospital is not doing well on the process measures, it’s unlikely to have good outcomes,” Whiting said. “But at the same time, just because it has all the process measures right doesn’t mean it’ll have good outcomes.”

Still, Whiting said he welcomed the additional information.

“We need better, more complete data, but this is definitely taking us in the direction we need to be going,” he said “Health care is complicated. The less information we have, the harder it is to ferret out what it all means. Having more information lets us build a better foundation for making better decisions.”

Whiting said he expected the website to affect hospital decision making processes as well.

“There have been all kinds of studies that have shown that no one – hospitals as well as doctors – wants to look bad,” he said, “so when data is made public, performance improves. Not being seen as a provider of high-quality care is uncomfortable.”

Cindy Samuelson, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Hospital Association, said the association has yet to review the new website.

In an email to KHI News Service, Samuelson wrote: “Kansas hospitals are committed to improving quality of care and involving patients as full partners in decisions about their care. We encourage patients to use this information to start a conversation with their physicians, nurses and other caregivers about their care.”