We have long been known to deride the national Open Payments database, believing that it does more harm than good. Recently, it was brought to our attention that the State of Florida has their own transparency database. FloridaHealthFinder.gov is a website run by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) and attempts to provide patients with healthcare provider information. The website has been around since 2000 and has continued to be updated and expanded, gaining national recognition as a leader in health care transparency. Through health care quality comparison tools, the health encyclopedia, and many other resources, Floridians can use this website to learn about medical conditions, compare health care facilities and providers, find health care resources, and much more.
Hospital and Ambulatory Surgery Comparison Tool
The Hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers comparison tool provides performance data for over 150 medical conditions and procedures in Florida’s hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers.
This tool includes a range of charges, as well as the number of hospitalizations and the number of visits at ambulatory surgery centers. For hospitals, it also includes the average length of stay as well as rates for readmission, mortality, infections and complications. The hospital data includes a separate section for pediatric data and the results of a patient satisfaction survey.
For either type of facility, the user can make a selection based on health care conditions or procedures, facility name, and/or the geographic location of the facility. This information is updated on a quarterly basis.
Other Comparison Tools
There are other comparison tools available, including a physician comparison tool (allows consumers to compare physicians by the number of surgeries performed during one year, for: total hip and total knee replacement, coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) and spinal fusion), an assisted living facility comparison tool, nursing home guide, and a link to compare prescription drug prices.
Quality Measures Displayed
- Readmission Rates: The hospital readmission rates are based on patients readmitted to the same facility or another short term acute care hospital within 15 days of the original admission for the same or related condition. This rate is assigned to the hospital that first admitted the patient regardless of where the patient is readmitted.
- Mortality Rates: These measures reflect the quality of care given in hospitals. They include measures of mortality for selected medical conditions and surgical procedures; utilization of procedures for which there is overuse, underuse and misuse; and volume of procedures for which there is some evidence that a higher volume of procedures is associated with lower mortality.
- Complication and Infection Rates: These measures help identify potentially preventable complications and infections that may occur during hospitalization. These indicators provide an initial measure of inpatient complications following surgeries, medical procedures, and childbirth.
- Pediatric Measures: These measures provide a perspective on quality of pediatric healthcare. Specifically, they screen for problems that pediatric patients experience as a result of exposure to the healthcare system and that may be amenable to prevention by changes at the system or provider level.