Evaluation portal for hospitals started

The AOK launches a hospital navigator. Patients can search for the best clinic and self-assess.

(02.05.2010) The AOK has set up a new interresant online rating portal, the "AOK Hospital Navigator". Patients can now seek and evaluate appropriate clinics for knee, hip and thigh surgery. To date, around 200 hospitals from the regions of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Westfalen-Lippe are listed. By the end of 2010, all provinces and around 1000 clinics should be available. Visitors to the AOK Hospital Navigator can view the data of the hospitals when entering the postal code. Based on the results, visitors can now see the consequences of hospital operations over a one-year period. In order to be able to provide corresponding results, about 76,000 AOK patients were previously interviewed anonymously with an evaluation form. A QSR procedure can be used to check the frequency with which surgical complications, thromboses or pulmonary embolisms occurred and how often people died after surgery.
Only hospitals were listed that had performed at least 30 interventions after hip, knee or thigh fractures.

"From the patient's point of view, this is an important step forward," praises the head of health at the Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband, Stefan Etgeton, the new rating portal of the AOK. That was a "royal road in quality assurance". The navigator is designed to help patients get comprehensive information before undergoing surgery. Doctors can now better advise patients. Consequences can be minimized as patients now have a better overview of clinics. This also saves costs. As clinics compete, the incentive to improve the quality of surgical treatments will increase. As a result, follow-up costs for botching for further treatments can be minimized. The consumer protection center estimates the savings potential within three years of health insurance to 40 to 50 million euros. The Navigator is open to all visitors, even if they are not insured with the AOK.

Click here for the AOK Hospital Navigator:
http://weisse-liste.aok-gesundheitsnavi.de/

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