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PROFESSIONAL ISSUESWeb site rates quality of care at Texas hospitalsThe posting of performance data aims to encourage doctor-patient dialogue on hospital referrals.By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. Feb. 16, 2004. In case you're wondering, Christus Spohn Hospital South delivered the most babies in Corpus Christi, Texas, during 2001, and in the first three months of 2002 its C-section rate was above average for Texas hospitals, but its average length of stay and charges for services were almost a match with state norms. Information on births and cardiac care are now posted on the Texas Hospital Checkup Web site sponsored by the Texas Business Group on Health, a coalition of 175 companies that spends about $20 billion annually on the health care needs of its 450,000 employees and their families. "It's kind of like Consumer Reports magazine," said TBGH President and CEO Marianne Fazen. "I think people will use it to confirm their own beliefs or, if they don't have a clue about which hospital to go to, they'll use it as another decision-support tool." Fazen said the Web site is getting some 100,000 hits a week, and Starr West, director of health care quality at the Texas Hospital Assn., said she believes this is a good thing. "We think it encourages dialogue between patients and their doctors," she said. "It will encourage patients to ask questions about outcomes, about why their doctor sends patients to a particular hospital and why some hospitals charge more." Fazen said cardiac procedures were chosen because "that's really the highest cost driver for our employers," and births were chosen because "more employees have babies than heart problems." Orthopedic procedures may be the next item added to the list, Fazen said. The group would also like to add surgical complication rates but their expert panels were having a difficult time reaching a consensus on what constitutes a complication. [...]Full text of AMNews content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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