Hospital Care

When You Need Hospital Care

Learning About Hospital Quality

Information on Hospital Compare

Getting Started with Hospital Compare

How Well Does Your Hospital Provide Quality Care?

Using New Mexico CheckPoint

Hospital Compare and Patient Safety Materials and Tools

When You Need Hospital Care

Hospitals can be so different – one may give better care for some conditions than others. You want to know when hospitals provide good care, but how can you find out?

Sometimes, you don’t have time to research every decision. The unexpected happens and you must choose a hospital quickly. Some hospitals may not meet your medical needs or accept your insurance. Your doctor may not practice at every hospital in your area. Or your choices may be limited.

Take a few minutes now to prepare. Use the information on Hospital Compare and New Mexico CheckPoint(sm) - New Mexico Hospitals Accountable for Quality - to learn all you can about quality of care at hospitals in your area and talk with your doctor before an emergency arises.

Learning About Hospital Quality

Quality care means you get the right medicine, treatment or test at the right time for your condition. Getting quality care means you may recover more quickly and avoid other medical problems. It’s important to know that hospitals vary in the quality of care they provide and you may be able to use this information to choose a hospital when you need one.

Hospital Compare and CheckPoint are Web sites available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These easy-to-use resources can show you how well participating hospitals take care of their patients with certain conditions.

Talk to your doctor and health care providers, as well as friends and family, about:

• Hospital quality. Some hospitals have more experience or better results treating certain conditions. Find out which hospital provides the best care for the condition you are concerned about. If your doctor shows a strong preference for a certain hospital, ask why.
• Their experiences with the hospital.
• The information you find on Hospital Compare and Checkpoint. Your health provider may be able to answer any questions or concerns you have.

Information on Hospital Compare

Hospital Compare shows how often hospitals provide the right care for their patients at the right time. Currently, the Web site gives information about heart attack, pneumonia and heart failure, the most common serious medical conditions for older people. The Web site shows how well hospitals provide treatments usually given for these conditions. You can use this information when talking to your doctor or other health care professional about your hospital care.

Hospital Compare will show how often hospitals gave recommended treatments for:

Heart Attack

Hospital staff should:

• Give aspirin within 24 hours of arriving at the hospital, unless taking aspirin could be harmful. Hospitals should also make sure heart attack patients are told to continue to take aspirin when they leave the hospital.
• Give a beta-blocker (a medicine to treat some heart problems) within 24 hours of arriving at the hospital. Hospitals should also make sure heart attack patients are prescribed a beta-blocker when they leave the hospital.
• Give an angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor (a medicine that treats some heart problems) before patients leave the hospital.

Pneumonia

Hospital staff should:

• Measure oxygen levels in the patient’s blood by doing an oxygenation assessment within 24 hours of the patient’s arrival at the hospital
• Give an antibiotic, or combination of antibiotics, to treat pneumonia as soon as possible, unless the patient is allergic to antibiotics
• Give the pneumonia vaccine, if the patient has not had one, before leaving the hospital

Heart Failure

Hospital staff should:

• Check patients' hearts to see how the left chamber is pumping (left ventricular function assessment)
• Prescribe an ACE inhibitor (a medicine that treats some heart problems) when leaving the hospital

Getting Started with Hospital Compare

Getting information about the quality of local hospitals is easy. First, understand why you (or your loved one) need hospital care. Then:

1. Go to www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/ or www.medicare.gov/, click on “Compare Hospitals in Your Area”
2. You see four tabs − Search, About, Data Details, Resources
3. With the Search tab highlighted, follow the step-by-step instructions to find specific information about hospitals in your area

People without Internet access can call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) for the same information about hospital quality.

How Well Does Your Hospital Provide Quality Care?

These questions may help you think about your hospital’s quality:

How does the hospital compare with others in my area?

Is this a hospital where my doctor can treat patients?

How well does staff at this hospital treat people with my health problem?

Does the hospital meet national quality standards?

Does staff at this hospital treat a lot of people with my health problem?

How often is the procedure I need done at this hospital?

Hospital Compare offers a checklist that can help you decide whether a hospital will meet your needs. Go to http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/, select the About tab, then select the Hospital Checklist.

Using New Mexico CheckPoint

The New Mexico Hospitals & Health Systems Association (NMHHSA) and the New Mexico Medical Review Association (NMMRA) worked together to make hospital quality information available to the public through a Web site called CheckPoint(SM) - New Mexico Hospitals Accountable for Quality.

This Web site provides information about treatments related to heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia. This is Phase One of a three-phase NMHHSA plan for public reporting of hospital data that will be expanded to include additional quality measures, charge information, and hospital performance related to prevention of health care-acquired infections.

Hospital Compare and Patient Safety Materials and Tools