[cougarnurse]

I've heard about this: Patients rate local hospitals - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - What do former patients think about the care they received at your local hospitals? The government wants to make it easier for you to find out.
health officials in recent years have made strides to improve transparency in health care. But measuring how well hospitals do their job can be technical. New patient satisfaction scores, which went online Friday, cover basic premises that just about every hospital patient and their family members can understand.
For example:
_Did doctors treat patients with courtesy and respect?
_How often were the room and bathroom cleaned?
_Was the area around the room quiet?
_Did the patient get immediate help after pressing a call button?
Those questions were included in a survey used to evaluate more than 2,500 hospitals around the country.
The government's Web site, Medicare.gov - Hospital Compare, lets consumers compare up to three hospitals. Users will be able to see the scores for such things as how often nurses communicated well with their patients; hospitals nationwide averaged 73 percent on that particular question. Consumers will also be able to see how well the average hospital in their state fared on each question.

Comments?

[cougarnurse]

More on the blurb:
Federal officials said they recognize that patients needing emergency care won't use the comparison Web site, nor should they. However, more than 60 percent of all patients go to a hospital for elective procedures.
The site will also help hospitals focus improvements where patients feel it is most needed, said Rich Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association.
"Ultimately, this tool benefits everyone," Umbdenstock said.
Overall, federal officials said rural hospitals seemed to fare better

[ms_maggie]

Okay, this is a good tool, however, when do we get to rate the patients?

I wish hospitals did more to inform patients of the education, training and responsiblity that their nurses have. Most people are fine, but there are those who make you feel as though they really don't understand that, in a pinch, we are expected to save their or their loved-one's life!

I really get along well with my patients...perhaps better than I do with my co-workers, lol....but it drives me nuts when we are treated like some sort of fun novelty!

[cougarnurse]

I hear ya on rating the patients! Some do take the cake, don't they? Of course, sometimes it's the family......