HHS Promotes Hospital Compare

HDM Breaking News, May 21, 2008

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has launched a national advertising campaign to promote its Hospital Compare Web site.

The print campaign features ads placed in the May 21 edition of 58 major daily newspapers. The ads, which are aimed at reaching areas covered by about 1,000 of the 4,000 hospitals for which the Hospital Compare site offers data, invites readers to "Compare the Quality of Your Local Hospitals."

It then provides scores from two of the 26 quality and patient satisfaction measures on the site for a sample of hospitals in the newspaper's readership area. These measures include:

*Percentage of patients at each hospital who always received help when they requested it, as reported by patients;
*Percentage of patients at each hospital who were given antibiotics before surgery, as reported by hospitals; and
*The state average for these measures.

The ad campaign is designed to help raise consumer awareness of the Web site as well as encourage hospitals to improve the care they provide, says CMS Acting Administrator Kerry Weems.

For more information, go to hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.

 

For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:

• Policies/Regulation
• Web Technology
• Hospitals