New York State Published Loads of Hospital Data
The New York Department of Health just launched a public web site with quality-of-care data for all the public hospitals in the state. Visitors can browse and search the site by name, as well as compare several hospitals by procedure and benchmark them against the state average, as well as shows whether recommended procedures are followed. The web site strives to educate consumers about the reliability issues linked to the information service it offers and explains how data is collected and used.
NY Daily News quotes state Health Commissioner Antonia Novello as saying he expected the results to go up because of the public ratings. Some hospitals commented that departments or procedures that got low grades were under review.
January 20, 2006 Related topics: Quality, Safety, Errors