Hi All,Hopefully you'll never have to use this site, but if you do...Hospital Compare from the Department of Health and Human Services (sponsored by the United States Government) is absolutely fabulous. I don't throw around compliments like that often, but this site is just great!
Starting at the beginning - a good place to start I would think :) - users can enter a location (Zip Code, City or State) in the boxes provided. Users can then focus on types of hospitals by narrowing down by General Hospitals, by Medical Condition or by Surgical Procedures.
The example that I'll use in this blog entry is a search for hospitals in the zip code 11501 (Mineola, New York). Once I did that search I saw a page that listed 62 hospitals that are withing 25 miles of Mineola. The usual suspects of hospitals comes up - including: Winthrop University Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, North Shore University Hospital and others.
The chart lists hospitals by the hospital type (acute care, acute care - veterans, Children's hospital, Critical Care hospitals and whether or not the hospital offers emergency services).
The real value of the site comes when users click on the tab at the top of the page that says 'Quality of Care'. When users click on this link they can see data on:
1. Survey of Patients' Hospital Experiences
2. Process of Care Measures
3. Outcome of Care Measures
4. Use of Medical Imaging
5. Patient Safety Measures
Users can compare up to 3 different hospitals in chart format - which makes it very, very easy to digest all the data. Users can also view the data in graph or table format for easier viewing and consumption of the information. Wow - very informative, timely and useful information is at your fingertips now!
Enjoy the site - I hope you find it useful and timely.
Regards,
Stu
