The Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) has announced that it will add enhanced hospital quality information to its public "Hospital Compare" Web site (www.HospitalCompare.hhs.gov).

Now, for the first time ever, the public will be able to see how a hospital's performance compares to the national mortality rate for two common heart conditions. Additionally, the HQA will add more comprehensive information about steps taken to prevent surgical infections and pneumonia.

The addition of these new data reflects the HQA's continuing commitment, since 2002, to publicly report meaningful, useful hospital quality of care information to help patients and consumers make more informed decisions about hospital care.

Currently, information on Hospital Compare allows patients and consumers to see how many times hospitals provide important treatments for heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical patients.

Rich Umbdenstock, President and CEO of the American Hospital Association, said, "Getting useful information about hospital quality into the hands of consumers is the goal of the Hospital Quality Alliance -- and it's a goal hospitals are committed to. Equally important is sharing this data with hospitals so physicians and nurses can review the information and improve how they deliver care. Through this important effort, hospitals are voluntarily making more information about quality publicly available. That's good for patients and families."

The new information will allow consumers to find out how heart attack and heart failure patients fared 30 days after being admitted to a hospital, including time spent outside the hospital after being discharged. Hospitals will be placed in one of three categories based on their performance in relation to a national rate -- "no different than the U.S. national rate", "better than the U.S. national rate" or "worse than the U.S. national rate" -- in order to provide clear, understandable language to patients and consumers.

Until now, such specific mortality information has not been available. It differs from previous federal efforts in that the mortality information measures two specific conditions only, uses a new methodology and has been endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF), a national consensus standards-setting body. The new methodology is more sophisticated and uses one year of medical history from billing information to adjust for differences in patients' health, a process known as risk adjustment. While no method is perfect, this risk adjustment is the best method currently available and is intended to provide for reliable comparisons of outcomes across hospitals.

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