Compare hospitals with new online tool

Choosing a hospital can be overwhelming — especially when you need surgery.

To help our members, UPMC Health Plan has launched Hospital Advisor^SM, a new online service providing detailed cost and quality information on hospitals across the region.

The new service, available in the MyHealth OnLine area of upmchealthplan.com, offers a practical way to compare the quality and safety of hospital services.

A member faced with a hospital stay can log in and compare hospitals based on the results those hospitals achieved in treating certain conditions and performing certain procedures.

For example, you can use “heart surgery” as the starting point for comparing hospitals based on their performance in this category. Hospital Advisor shows information for each hospital, such as:

• number of patients treated
• mortality rates
• major complications
• infections

The service is easily adjusted to reflect the user’s interests. You can decide which quality measures are most important to you, and the rankings will reflect your choices.

You can also view information on hospitals’ use of patient safety procedures, high technology services, intensive care and critical care units, accreditation, and status as a teaching hospital.

The information used for the comparison comes from data that hospitals submit to the federal government and to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council.

The data does not identify specific patients, but describes the kind of care given and the result of the treatment.

Hospital comparison information also comes from the American Hospital Association, the National Research Corporation, and The Leapfrog Group.