The Joint Commission to Include Patient Satisfaction Data on Quality Check™

Moral of the story: Health care is becoming more transparent, even if slowly. Check out the link below to check out the survey results for your area.


January 20, 2009
The Joint Commission to Include Patient Satisfaction Data on Quality Check™
Web site provides new information to help patients make decisions
Media Contact: Ken PowersMedia Relations Manager630-792-5175kpowers@jointcommission.org
(OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. – January 20, 2009) People seeking information about how patients perceive the care they received at a particular hospital can now find this information on The Joint Commission’s Quality Check™ Web site, http://www.qualitycheck.org/.
The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Hospital Compare Web site is posted on Quality Check™ beginning this month. This information will be updated quarterly.
HCAHPS information comes from patient ratings of communication with doctors, communication with nurses, responsiveness of hospital staff, cleanliness and quietness of the hospital, pain management, communication about medications, and discharge information. In addition to information about patient satisfaction, Quality Check™ also includes data from CMS on 30-day mortality rates for heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia.
Thousands of people use Quality Check™ each month to find information about the more than 15,000 accredited health care organizations that have earned The Joint Commission “Gold Seal of Approval.” Quality Check™ provides details about an organization’s accreditation status, efforts to prevent medical mistakes by complying with National Patient Safety Goals, and comparison information about how hospitals comply with National Quality Improvement Goals such as giving heart attack patients aspirin within a specified timeframe.