Accreditation

Report cards drive hospitals to improve

Accreditation Connection, April 23, 2007

Hospitals are beginning to pay close attention to Web sites that rank hospitals on safety and cost, according to The Washington Post.

Sites that offer hospital scorecards, such as HealthGrades or the government's www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov, are seeing more usage by patients and are forcing hospitals to respond.

Hospitals scoring on some of the quality measures are being forced to improve or risk losing patients, the Post reports. For example, Winchester (VA) Medical Center received a lower than expected ranking on a Solucient scorecard and then made a goal to make the company's Top 100 list by 2008. After hiring a consultant and drastically reducing infection rates, the hospital reached its goal early.

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