Quality Reports
Change text size
HealthGrades
HealthGrades is an Internet-based service focused on evaluating the quality of United States health care providers. The company focuses on providing information that helps individuals find health care providers. HealthGrades' clients include a variety of providers, employees, health plans, insurance companies and consumers. HealthGrades charges health care providers to use and publicize their ranking information.
Organization Background
Web Site |
www.healthgrades.com
|
Services |
According to HealthGrades, more than 12 million people visit its web site each year. HealthGrades offers consumers hospital quality information, including ratings and awards. In-depth reports can be purchased on hospitals, physicians and nursing homes. The company's ratings and advisory services help health care providers assess and improve their quality. HealthGrades also sells professional report services to insurance companies and brokers to help them manage costs and risks.
|
Audience |
The organization offers health care information to consumers, employers, health plans, benefits departments, insurance companies and industry leaders.
|
Type of Quality Data |
HealthGrades rates or profiles more than 5,000 hospitals in various specialties such as cardiac surgery, orthopedic surgery, neurosciences and women's health. It also reviews and assesses individual procedures and diagnoses. The company also compiles quality information on 620,000 physicians in 110 specialties, 15,000 nursing homes and 6,000 home health agencies.
Physician quality reports, available for purchase through HealthGrades, feature the following information:
- Specialties
- Education and training including information on medical school, years of service, residency and internships, fellowships and licensures
- Certifications from national boards
- Disciplinary actions or sanctions against the physician
- Comparisons to other physicians for experience, certifications and disciplinary actions
- Physician characteristics including gender and foreign languages
- Quality ratings for hospitals affiliated with the physician
- Checklists of questions to ask the physician
|
Data Source |
HealthGrades teams gather and analyze data from independent public and private sources to compile their report card ratings. The company uses advanced analysis and statistical tools to generate accurate comparisons across different types of patient groups. Data sources include the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and individual states. Exact formulas are not made public.
|
MeritCare's Report |
HealthGrades creates report-card style quality reports for hospitals in high-volume and low-volume categories. MeritCare is considered a high-volume hospital. Each of the hospital's procedure areas is given a rating of five stars ("best"), three stars ("as expected") or one star ("poor").
|