CalHospitalCompare.org is a report card of California hospital performance ratings, which consolidates information from a number of sources into an easy-to-navigate Web site. More than 200 hospitals, representing 70% of all hospital admissions in the state of California, agreed to participate in the voluntary effort.

The free service allows consumers to search for hospitals by location, name, or medical condition. Hospitals are rated on 50 performance indicators, including patient satisfaction measures and specific conditions, such as heart disease, maternity, and pneumonia. It was developed with input from consumer focus groups to ensure a clear, easy-to-understand format.

New data available for the first time on CalHospitalCompare include 27 patient satisfaction measures reported by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) as well as 9 additional measures of patient experience. All measures are aligned with current national initiatives such as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and the National Quality Forum (NQF).

CalHospitalCompare is the result of a two-year collaboration by the California Hospital Assessment and Reporting Taskforce (CHART), whose members include hospitals, health plans, doctors and nurses, consumer groups, employers, and the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF). The data collection and analysis were performed by the University of California, San Francisco's Institute for Health Policy Studies.

Beyond consumers, CalHospitalCompare is intended to benefit health care organizations. The report card provides health plans with relevant information to make decisions about which hospitals to include in their networks and offers hospitals reliable data to help improve the quality of care at their institutions. The information can also benefit physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals who may use the data to make referral decisions.

CalHospitalCompare will be updated regularly with new measures to enhance the consumer benefits. Future enhancements will include a Spanish-language version and an expanding set of performance measures; specifically, pediatric and intensive care measures will be added later this year.