CMS Hospital and Nursing Home Comparative Web Sites Get Upgrades

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has introduced new features to its Hospital Compare and Nursing Home Compare Web sites, and emphasizes that anyone, not just Medicare recipients, can use the sites.

Both sites have data on facility quality performance measures, such as in-facility infection rates, hospital readmission rates, and the percentage of nursing home patients experiencing moderate to severe pain while in the facility. Navigation improvements include maps for locating hospitals and being able to enter a specific hospital name in the search box. Both sites also now support mobile devices.

New features in Nursing Home Compare include detailed findings from inspections, use of antipsychotic medications, updated existing quality measures and information on nursing home ownership.

New Features in Hospital Compare include two new measures covering potential health risks of imaging services and updated existing quality measures.