Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt spoke on Friday at the Association of Health Care Journalists' Health Journalism 2008 conference. Leavitt about the new patient experience data that was added to the Hospital Compare website. Leavitt admitted "we're not very good, but we're making a lot of progress", relating the new availability of the HCAHPS survey data to the jump from the earliest video games. “We are just leaving the Pong era when it comes to measuring quality," he said.

The updates to the hospital compare website represented a fundamental shift in the way the industry is perceived. "The current sector is all about volume," Leavitt said. "The future is about value." In analyzing the HCAHPS survey results, officials noted that rural hospitals do better on some patient satisfaction measures than urban hospitals. Herb Kuhn, acting deputy administrator at CMS said “I think that has to do with rural hospitals being more of a fabric of the community.”

Secretary Leavitt viewed the release of the survey data that allows the comparison of organizations along quality measures as a positive step for the industry that could bring better care at lower prices. "I hope it drives quality up and costs down," Leavitt said. The Hospital Compare website is intended "to help give consumers more choice about the quality of their health care and how they may be able to lower their health care costs," he continued. "It is about improving everyone. Every health-care provider wants to provide high quality. Doctors don't go to work with the idea, 'I want to be mediocre,' " Leavitt said. "Wherever in health care there is robust information . . . the cost goes down and the quality goes up."

Additionally, a new report at Government Health IT revealed that more updates are planned:

CMS officials said they will add an outcome measure on pneumonia deaths to Hospital Compare this summer, along with more details on mortality from heart attacks and heart failure.

Sources: The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, The Palm Beach Post, The Wichita Eagle, The St. Louis Tribune.