New York City To Post Hospital Quality Data Online
The New York City Health and Hospital Corporation on Friday will begin to publicly disclose safety and performance data from the 11 hospitals in its system, the New York Times reports.
HHC will post the data on its Web site, www.nyc.gov/hhc, where visitors will be able to view overall death rates along with the rates of death after heart attacks, preventable bloodstream infections and pneumonia cases, among other data.
The move by the HHC to publicize the data stems from an effort by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to set public health care as a priority of his administration and from HHC's efforts to improve patient safety, the Times reports.
According to the Times, health care experts and consumer activists said the move to release the data puts the city's hospital system, which serves 1.3 million patients annually, "far ahead of the industry."
Alan Aviles, president of HHC, said, "It does focus on the underbelly of health care. But if you want to make improvements, you have to acknowledge the underbelly."
Jim Conway, senior vice president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, said hospitals in the HHC system are "exposing themselves to considerable scrutiny," adding that "others will draw courage" from their example (Kershaw, New York Times, 9/7).