With patient safety and hospital quality high on the list of concerns of health care consumers, the movement to reveal data about facilities’ performance via the Internet is consistently growing stronger. With the click of a mouse, patients are increasingly able to discover mortality rates and other patient safety measures at hospitals across the country.

This week, the Colorado Hospital Association announced that it will launch the Colorado Hospital Report Card on Nov. 30 in accordance with House Bill 1278, which was passed in 2006. The Web-based scorecard will initially include information on mortality rates, number of procedures performed and patient safety measures; it will potentially include other measures such as clinical quality, best practices and patient satisfaction scores.

Upon the passing of HB 1278 last summer, the bill received praise from the state’s then-governor Bill Owens as a new way to empower the state’s health care consumers to take control of the care they receive.

“Colorado hospitals have already been doing a good job of reporting,” he said. “For several years, they have released hospital-specific information on patient care, clinical safety, charges and average length of stay. Now, this legislation will bring even greater accountability and transparency to our health care system.”

Steven J. Summer, president and chief executive officer of the Colorado Hospital Association, released a statement about the anticipated results of the report card’s launch.

“This report card will be the foundation for helping the public become better informed about hospital quality factors,” he said. “Ideally it will be an important building block in the transformation of our health care system.”

Health care consumers nationwide are also able to benefit from the public disclosure of hospital performance thanks to the Department of Health and Human Services’ “Hospital Compare” Web site, sponsored by the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA), a public-private partnership of hospitals, government agencies, quality experts, purchasers, consumer groups and other health care organizations. The site includes information on quality and safety measures provided by more than 4,000 hospitals across the country.

Also this week, HQA announced that it will enhance its already existing Hospital Compare site to include comparisons between a hospital’s performance and the national mortality rates from two common heart conditions—heart attack and heart failure—including information on how patients with these conditions fared 30 days after being admitted to the hospital.

The site is also adding information about steps facilities are taking to prevent surgical infections and pneumonia.

In a briefing announcing the addition of the new data to the Hospital Compare Web site, health care experts spoke about how the technology of hospital report cards serves as an important educational component for concerned health care consumers as well as a beneficial tool for physicians and nurses working to improve the quality of care provided at their institutions.

“Getting useful information about hospital quality into the hands of consumers is the goal of the Hospital Quality Alliance and it’s a goal hospitals are committed to,” said Rich Umbdenstock, president and chief executive officer of the American Hospital Association. “Equally important is sharing this data with hospitals so physicians and nurses can review the information and improve how they deliver care. Through this important effort, hospitals are voluntarily making more information about quality publicly available. That’s good for patients and families.”