New Web site Allows You To Rate Care At Oklahoma Hospitals

By Margaret Stokes & Chris Howell NewsOn6.com

TULSA, OK-- A new website allows you to rate the care you receive at 80 hospitals across Oklahoma, as well as which one has the best record.

OKHospitalQuality.org was launched less than a week ago. Although some of the information on the site was already available on the internet, finding it was not easy.

Now the Oklahoma Hospital Association has created a site to make everything you need easy to find and to create more transparency within the healthcare industry.

Doctor Adam Myers with SouthCrest Hospital is proud that Southcrest is one of the eighty hospitals that participate in this new website.

The website provides information on 45 patient safety measures. For example, one measure will report how frequently an aspirin is given to a patient experiencing a heart attack within 24 hours of admission because this is one way to thin the blood and reduce stress on the heart. Another part of the site compiles patient surveys.

"Patients when they come to hospitals expect that the right care is going to be given to them every single time they walk in the door Unfortunately you and I both know that is not always the case," said Dr. Myers.

Dr. Myers says checking around to see each hospital rating is something that every patient should be able to do.

St. John Medical Center released this statement on the new website:

"St. John Medical Center's participation in the Medicare Hospital Compare website further enforces our commitment to delivering quality healthcare.  The information provides an avenue to identify and adopt best practices toward our commitment to patient-centered quality care, while offering patients a greater understanding of the care they receive. 

While St. John is supportive of Medicare's efforts to publish this data, we believe the usefulness of the content as presented is limited because it is reflective of data that is as much as two to three years old.  St. John and many other hospitals are working everyday to improve quality and safety efforts.  Thus, the data a consumer sees on this website is not necessarily indicative of the quality and safety today for any hospital.

St. John remains committed to continually providing the safest and highest quality of care to our patients today, as we meet tomorrow's evolving community healthcare needs."

Hospitals in the state launched another website, OKHospitalPricing.org, in late 2007.  This website allows consumers to view prices for common diagnoses for hospitals in their communities, as well as compare to other hospitals across the state.