HealthGrades, the consumer-oriented directory of hospitals, nursing homes and physicians, has acquired the CompareYourCare online patient-education and physician care-rating tool from the Foundation for Accountability (FACCT).
The tool will remain available as a free service, said John Morrow, executive vice president of HealthGrades.
Patients can log on to compareyourcare.org, and complete questionnaires about their experiences with their physicians in four conditions--asthma, depression, diabetes and heart disease--and for a fifth category, "staying healthy."
Results from the questionnaire are compared instantly with national and regional quality guidelines and patients are given a grade that measures how close their physician came to optimal care. Patients are also rated on their level of compliance with basic care plans. The rankings will not be publicly displayed. Patients are able to print out a report showing the grades, areas where care was good and suggested areas of improvement.
Overall, FAACT developed 22 tools, including 16 on the Web. Three were available in Spanish as well as English. All will be available online to new users through the HealthGrades Web site once the full conversion takes place in a couple of months, Morrow said.
Morrow said FAACT's system was in development for seven years and has been running for three years.
Terms of the sale were not announced.
