URAC and The Leapfrog Group announced today that applications are now being accepted for their joint Hospital Website Transparency Awards. This awards program, now in its second year, identifies outstanding hospital websites that display quality measures that are useful and easy to understand for patients, payers, and the general public. All hospitals that complete a 2013 Leapfrog Hospital Survey are eligible.
Websites are evaluated in five category areas: transparency/reporting, design, credibility, literacy, and connectivity. The highest achieving hospitals in these five categories will receive the Hospital Website Transparency Award. Applicant hospitals will also have an opportunity to highlight any innovations within the application categories, as well as website innovations that may fall outside of the identified topic areas. These submissions will be evaluated by a panel of judges, and up to three hospitals may receive the Hospital Website Transparency Award with Distinction based on their innovative practices and their overall application score.
The URAC and The Leapfrog Group Hospital Website Transparency Awards criteria have been developed in accordance with the National Quality Forum’s guidelines for consumer-focused, internet-based public reporting of health performance data, as well as the Model Public Report Elements prepared for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Applications will be accepted through September 20, 2013. More information about the URAC and The Leapfrog Group Hospital Website Transparency Awards program can be found at https://www.urac.org/hospitalwebsiteawards/.