Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, Ill., last week became the first in the Chicago area to post care quality information and patient satisfaction ratings online (Northwest Community Hospital Quality Report site, reports iHealthBeat. The federal government plans next spring to release hospital care quality data.
Northwest posted on its Web site data about hospital-acquired infections, care for patients with heart attacks and heart failure, the adequacy of its nursing staff, as well as other measures.
Dozens of other hospitals nationwide — including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in MA, Dartmouth-Hitchcock in New Hampshire, Norton Healthcare in Kentucky and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio — are posting quality information online.