U.S. agency offers tips on hospitals

If you're trying to decide on where to get those tonsils removed or a more delicate heart valve replacement, St. Rose Dominican Hospitals' De Lima or Siena campuses are more hospitable than other hospitals in Southern Nevada, according to a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' advertisement published Wednesday.

The ad, variations of which appeared in newspapers in all 50 states, also suggests that patients at the two St. Rose hospitals, along with Spring Valley Hospital, receive infection-fighting antibiotics one-hour before surgery more often than patients elsewhere.

The advertising campaign is intended to direct more health care consumers to hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.

Created by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services officials a few years ago, the Web site is a tool that allows consumers to compare the care hospitals provide to patients for heart attacks, heart failure, pneumonia and some surgeries.

Twenty-seven hospitals in Nevada voluntarily provide data to the agency regarding medical care. The Web site also displays Medicare inpatient hospital payment information and the number of Medicare patients treated for certain illnesses or diagnoses.

There's one caveat. Much of the information is nearly a year old, and in some circumstances nearly two years old.

"There's nothing wrong with the data. The data is good,'' said Ann Savin, systems director for quality for the Valley Health System. "I would just suggest people pay attention to the timing. The data reflects historical data, not real time.''

Savin said most hospitals, especially the five within the Valley Health System, are probably doing better than what's being reported by the agency.

Savin says she travels about 300 miles a week to each of the five hospitals ensuring that patients are safe and that the care being provided is top quality.

According to the agency, the hospital ratings are based mostly on Medicare patients' surveys and billings between July 2006 and June 2007.

Wednesday's ad, which appeared in the Review-Journal on page 18A, covered two areas: responsiveness to patient needs and whether patients were given antibiotics one hour prior to surgery. These measures "get people's attention,'' said Kerry Weems, the agency's top administrator.

For example, he said giving antibiotics prior to surgery is key in fighting hospital-acquired infections. Weems said the agency is a few years away from being able to report where patients are acquiring such infections.

"There are differences in hospitals and quality,'' Weems said. "This Web site is one tool they (consumers) can use in choosing a hospital.''