CMS Updates Hospital Compare Website

These indicators are important to hospital leaders, because they may be indicators of improper care practices and procedures, which could result in the readmission of patients to the acute care hospitals from which they had been transferred.

The site also shows whether each nursing home facility has received a financial penalty for failure to adhere to standards of care or causing patient harm.

Both the hospital and nursing home sites now include maps to geographically locate hospitals and nursing homes, and the ability to search by hospital name. Before the update, searches could be performed only by ZIP code.

Ling said that the government's websites are increasingly popular, with more than 1.2 million visits to Hospital Compare, and more than 500,000 visits to Nursing Home Compare during the first six months of 2012.