Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have launched a new online tool, Hospital Compare, that lets you compare the quality of hospitals (by various factors) across the United States.   Tara Calishain over at ResearchBuzz does a great job of explaining the search process and all the factors you get to choose from. 

I chose to compare the three hospitals in my county in terms of "Heart Attack Care."  I then selected all sub criteria (when beta blockers were given, etc.).  Some of the sub critera had data missing from one or more of my selected hospitals, which was disappointing.  And I do wish they had more care criteria to select from, but it’s still something…  I’ve forwarded this on to my RN mother for her two cents.  It will be interesting to hear what she thinks from the perspective of a health care professional, a heart-attack survivor, and wife of a heart-failure survivor (yes, I have bad heart genes, folks).