Find Top Quality Healthcare Online
Looking for the best local hospitals? Start at home with a few clicks of your mouse.
A variety of Web sites now offer valuable information on how hospitals compare in treating particular types of illness.
HealthGrades – a leading health care ratings company – recently ranked Mills-Peninsula among the top 5 percent of hospitals in the nation for overall clinical quality with a Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence Award ™.
The ratings are based on a survey that analyzed patient outcomes at virtually all of the nation’s 5,000 hospitals from 2004 through 2006.
That information can be found on HealthGrades’ Web site along with Mills-Peninsula’s specialty excellence awards for stroke, critical care, general surgery, gastrointestinal care and gastrointestinal surgery.
Other Web sites base their ratings on how well hospitals adhere to national benchmarks for treatment.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rates hospitals based on how many patients get treatments known to be effective for most adults with certain conditions. These treatments are referred to as process of care measures.
QualityCheck uses information submitted by hospitals as well as the results of unannounced visits by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
Leapfrog Group uses its own Hospital Quality and Safety Survey results for its rankings.
It’s always a good idea to check on the site how the information was collected and when. You also may want to check more than one site to see if the ratings are consistent.
Fresh clicks
www.healthgrades.com
www.qualitycheck.org/consumer/searchQCR.aspx
www.leapfroggroup.org/cp
www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov
www.mills-peninsula.org/reportcard