The Veterans Affairs Department has released online tool to enable veterans to compare how well the VA’s 153 hospitals perform. Acute care, patient safety and intensive care are the principal areas targeted by the tools, which can be accessed through the Linking Information Knowledge and Systems (Links) dashboard at VA’s Hospital Compare Web site (http://www.hospitalcompare.va.gov).
The dashboard shows the relative strengths in traffic light colors of hospitals in these three areas, as well as the areas that need improvement, at the national, regional and local hospital level. Another dashboard system called Aspire documents the quality and patient safety goals in specific measures, as well as VA’s progress in performing them from local to national levels. The VA’s Web site also tracks the mortality rates and readmissions after 30 days from discharge and best treatments for congestive heart failure, heart attack and pneumonia.