Which are the better hospitals?

April 2, 2005 7:08 PM

Hospital Compare: which are the better hospitals in your area?
posted by daksya (8 comments total)

the one i'm not in.
posted by quonsar at 7:31 PM on April 2, 2005

Very cool -- as a healthcare administrator, I find this very interesting. Thanks.
posted by davidmsc at 12:47 AM on April 3, 2005

Thanks. It's interesting to see which local hospitals have bothered to go through the pain in the ass of earning/maintaining accreditation. Even though it doesn't mean they're a good facility, given a choice I'd rather check into a hospital that's at least holding itself accountable to outside review.

Is there a good source for comparing consumers' reviews of hospitals and other healthcare services? It'd be nice to be forewarned of which ones consistently screw up the billing, or keep you in the waiting room for hours, or allot everyone a maximum of 5 minutes' exam time no matter how serious the illness/injury.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 1:09 AM on April 3, 2005

Thanks - quite interesting.
posted by insulglass at 3:51 AM on April 3, 2005

I used this comparator when I needed to find hospital care for a close relative. I found the ratings somewhat vague. Not the type of critical information that i expected to find the "best" hospitals in my area.

I already knew the Big Two within 5 miles. They are both excellent--the comparator offered no way to distinguis critically between the two.
posted by beelzbubba at 12:02 PM on April 3, 2005

Along with my mantra, "And yet we are a great nation," I've recently developed a new one, "All data is bogus." As useful as this site could be, it's not really. For example, the hospital for which my wife serves as one of the administrators has no data for many of the heart attack issues because they don't treat that many, and one of the pneumonia indicators she knows for a fact should have been 100%, but was less than 10% because the person responsible for actually reporting that data is an idiot.

I'm with nakedcodemonkey on this one: what's their average ER wait (national average is a little over 3 hours, in case you're wondering), how nice are the nurses, and how clean are the rooms?
posted by ancientgower at 4:08 PM on April 3, 2005

what's their average ER wait (national average is a little over 3 hours, in case you're wondering), how nice are the nurses, and how clean are the rooms?

...how frequently do people develop communicable illnesses that they didn't have upon check-in, when an emergency call button is activated how long does it take for staff to respond...

There have also been a number of reports that consistently show that medical errors continue to be a major problem for the industry, and are the 6th (up from 8th) leading cause of fatalities in the US. As a consumer, I'd be a very interested in comparing who's scoring better on those measures. Why isn't my government providing an open version of this? Looks like it's based on public records, after all...
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 7:17 PM on April 3, 2005

[sample report] Dang, yes, THAT kind of info; except without side-by-side comparisons of facilities. And if it has to be for a fee, then let insurance step up to the plate to cover the cost of finding the safest, most effective local hospital for me and mine to check into.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 7:30 PM on April 3, 2005