HCA 410 Week 5 Discussion 1

HCA 410  Week 5  Discussion 1 | Southwestern College

Numerous resources now exist that allow patients to evaluate care providers prior to seeking medical services. The information is extracted, either manually or electronically, by the providing organization using criteria provided by the monitoring/reporting site.

• Two available sites are Healthgrades.com and a Hospital comparison tool provided by Medicare. 

o Both sites provide the reporting hospitals with a set of criteria they wish to have submitted.

o The criterion between the two reporting sites provides different perspectives on the same hospitals.  

Under the Medicare tool, you will find several different types of tabs, tied to the measures important to Medicare.

o For example, the “Readmissions and deaths” tab (under the “About Hospital Compare” tab) shows how well the hospitals rank in terms of treating the disease the first time successfully.

Using these two sites:

• Select two hospitals in your town/area and evaluate data on two different medical conditions. 

o Use a condition, such as a heart attack, or a procedure, such as surgery that is reported in both sites. 

 For example, in Healthgrades.com, you may be interested in how well a hospital does with hip replacement (Healthgrades Ratings). 

 The comparable view of the Medicare data would be to look at the rate of complications for hip/knee replacements found under the “Complications” tab. 

o How do the hospitals compare using these measures and how would you explain the differences?  

o Would this information influence you to choose one hospital over the other? 

o If one site presents the information more favorable than the other site, how would this influence your decision?  

o Which site are you more likely to use when making healthcare decisions?    

Participation Requirements:

Original discussion forum posts:

• Create a thread for your original post identified with your name.

• Prepare a quality, substantive post that addresses the objectives of the discussion forum and the expectations set forth in the grading rubric

• Include supportive evidence; such as direct applicable experience and expert sources.