The American Alliance of Healthcare Providers has released its list of winners in the annual Hospital of Choice Awards. The honor recognizes America's most "consumer-friendly" hospitals.
The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's annual analysis to help health leaders identify areas of healthcare delivery that need quality improvement now includes information such as each state's rate of obesity, health insurance coverage, mental illness and the number of specialist doctors. The updated State Snapshots Web tool also tracks each states' progress toward reaching government-set health goals for 2010.
In some states, ambulance crews who suspect a stroke are required to seek out a designated stroke center, unless the nearest one is an unreasonable distance away. Now health officials in Virginia and Washington, DC, are considering similar plans. Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has signed a bill requiring local health officials to rush stroke patients to Joint Commission-certified primary stroke centers. In Washington, DC, the medical director of Fire and Emergency Medical Services said he soon will issue a protocol requiring transport of suspected stroke patients to Joint Commission-certified stroke centers.
Many hospital patients are dissatisfied with some aspects of their care and might not recommend their hospitals to friends and relatives, according to the government Web site www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov. The ratings for most of the nation's hospitals are based on a uniform national survey of patients, and many patients reported that they had not been treated with courtesy and respect by doctors and nurses; that they had not received adequate pain medication after surgery; and that they did not understand the instructions they received when discharged from the hospital.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has posted new survey information at the Hospital Compare consumer Web site. The site now has information from Medicare patients about their hospital stays, as well as information about the number of certain elective hospital procedures provided to those patients and what Medicare pays for those services. Representatives from CMS said the site provides consuners with quality information, patient satisfaction survey information, and pricing information for specific procedures that they need to make effective decisions about the quality and value of the healthcare available to them.
Older Americans are living longer than ever and enjoying better health and financial security, although there continue to be lingering disparities between racial and ethnic groups, according to a report. Edward Sondik, director of the National Center for Health Statistics, said in a statement that the report comes at "a critical time." Sondnik added that "as the baby boomers age and America's older population grows larger and more diverse, community leaders, policymakers and researchers have an even greater need for reliable data to understand where older Americans stand today and what they may face tomorrow."