Background: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS) publicly report patient experience star ratings for hospitals generated from their performance on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Provider and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. The objective was to make the information more understandable for patients. However, the ratings may not be intuitive or help consumer choice. For [...]

Background: Google searches for hospitals typically yield a Google star rating (GSR). These ratings are an important source of information for consumers. The degree to which GSRs are associated with traditional quality measures has not been evaluated recently. We sought to characterize the relationship between a hospital’s GSR, its Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers [...]

Background: 22% of the hospitals overall STAR rating is based on readmission reduction for the following disease specific groups: pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, acute myocardial infarction and congestive heart failure. Creating strategies surrounding prevention of readmissions that create workload balance leads to improved ability to manage these patients. The hospitalist medicine, emergency medicine, pulmonary, [...]