• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

CMS launches new quality Web site

Patient Safety Monitor Alert, April 6, 2005

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a Web site on April 1 that lists quality and performance data comparing about 4,200 hospitals in the U.S., reports the Boston Globe.

The site allows consumers to see the track records of hospitals in their state or region and compare them based on 17 quality measures.

"Quality can vary from hospital to hospital. We want to provide more support to empower consumers and more rewards to help hospitals take steps to improve performance," said Medicare administrator Dr. Mark McClellan.

Some found the results technical and difficult to understand, according to the Globe. The site does not include measures of performance such as death rates and infection rates.

Barbara Rabson, executive director of the nonprofit Massachusetts Health Quality Partners, which is developing comparative measures to judge physician performance in the state, said she found the CMS site informative but slightly technical for most consumers.

From a consumer perspective, she said, "I want to know how many procedures do they do, and how many people die."

To read the complete Boston Globe article, click here.

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive