Many of America's best hospitals, businesses and leading governmental organizations have been working for years to provide consumers with information on hospital quality. They are hoping we will compare quality information even before we might ever need to choose a hospital.

Well before the recent Wall Street Journal article, How to Size Up Your Hospital, made headlines of this work, some of America’s leading health researchers had been championing the cause. Judith Hibbard’s 2004 Health Affairs article, Moving Toward A More Patient-Centered Health Care Delivery System, pushed readers to understand that quality-of-care measurement had not kept pace with the shift toward approaches that “rely on patients to contain costs and improve quality.”

In addition to linking to the Healthcare Compare website, the WSJ article by Theo Francis provides a great table, a good overview and links to many of the leading hospital quality "comparison shopping" sites.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) site is an especially good place to start asking “How can I choose the best quality hospital for the care I need?” It provides direct links to many of the quality reports in each state.

If you're in one of the states leading the health quality information discussion, you may even find better information. From Maine to California consumers already have a good amount of comparative data online.

It got my attention July 3rd when New York Times health reporter Jane E. Brody said: “I consider this book so valuable I plan to keep it on my bedside table should I need it later on." The column, Advice on Dire Diagnoses From a Survivor, highlights important information from AfterShock, the recent book by Jessie Gruman, about what to do when you – or a loved one – receives a devastating diagnosis.

The article became pure synchronicity when on the very same day a leading health researcher in Minnesota told me to look into the important work that the Center for the Advancement of Health (CFAH) is doing to engage consumers in the process of improving health care. The founder and president of CFAH is Jessie Gruman.

Early on, CFAH focused on integrating evidence on health behavior into the practice of medicine. Today, it works through the “traditional news media, the blogosphere, the Internet, professional organizations and health care institutions to raise the visibility and priority of health behavior research in solving health care challenges.” CFAH is also home to Health Behavior News Service producing journalism about new systematic reviews relevant to individuals in making decisions about their health and healthcare.

A recent study published in HealthDay quantified the number of lives improved quality care would save. According to the study, “if the lowest ranked hospitals had the same death rates as top-ranked hospitals, 2,200 fewer older Americans would die each year from heart attacks, congestive heart failure or pneumonia.”

This report truly brings to light the reasons why quality matters. As Dr. Ashish Jha, an assistant professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, stated: “These findings are really a confirmation of the value of these quality measures for predicting outcomes.” While there are other research findings (Dr. Jha’s work among them) that would contradict the article’s assertion that “a hospital’s level of care is probably not tied to its treatment of any one condition but reflects an institution-wide commitment to quality care,” the content of the study nonetheless reinforces the notion that quality varies and consumers can and should make an educated choice when selecting a hospital. To find quality rankings for your local hospitals, visit national sites such as Leapfrog and Hospital Compare , or check with other local resources.

Information technology infrastructure and improved quality have been shown to be correlated in a study by Hospitals & Health Networks. Four quality measures – mortality rates, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s patient safety measures, the Joint Commission’s Core Measures and average length of stay – had better outcomes in the 100 “most wired” facilities. How did these facilities do it? The article details the ten lessons learned from the top hospitals in the study. Critics are quick to point out that although IT and quality are correlated, advanced IT function does not necessarily cause the benefits of improved quality. Mike Alverson, acting CIO of Texas Health Resources in Arlington states that, “These initiatives are a combination of people, process and technology, not just technology alone.”

If integrated IT is an accurate measure of quality, it would be logical for consumers to review the list of hospitals and health systems to determine which in their geographic area ranks highest and patronize these facilities when in need of care. Yet another indicator of quality healthcare and resource for consumer empowerment.

A new study published in the January/February 2008 issue of Health Affairs reports that “despite being the most prolific health care spender, the United States is falling farther behind its peer nations in overall health system performance, as measured by what the authors term “amenable mortality.” The United States places last among 19 leading industrialized countries when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care.

In its recent report, The State of Health Care Quality, NCQA concludes that the quality of care delivered by the 141 health plans who voluntarily report data has improved for an eighth consecutive year. But the rate of improvement has slowed leading President Margaret O’Kane to say “We must redouble our efforts to understand the value yielded by the $2 trillion we invest in health care.”

The report provides over 80 pages of trended HEDIS and other quality measures, but one of the most telling statistics is in figure 10 of the executive summary where it is noted that the NCQA’s “examination of the top 10 percent of health plans shows what our health care system is able to achieve. If the entire health care system could perform as well as the top achievers, NCQA estimates that as many as 75,000 lives could be saved each year and our national bill for hospital care would be reduced by as much as $3.7 billion.”