HealthfinderLa.gov gives residents easy access to health information

On February 2, 2010, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) Secretary Alan Levine launched www.HealthFinderLA.gov, which will give residents across the state easy access to detailed, accurate information on the cost, quality and performance of health care facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes, as well as health plans and prescription drugs. 

With www.HealthFinderLA.gov, consumers – including children - will be able to access educational materials on living healthier lives, find the usual and customary charges for the Top 100 most commonly prescribed medications, and access information comparing various quality and patient safety measures in Louisiana hospitals, nursing homes and health plans.  The site will provide key performance data on health care facilities and health plans, including death rates, readmission rates, dozens of nationally accepted quality and performance measures for health plans, and complication rates for procedures.

 Louisiana is now one of only four states to have brought together data on hospitals, nursing homes, health plans and pharmacy pricing onto one, easy-to-use website to help consumers get the information they need.

Louisiana Health Finder provides an increased level of transparency for Louisiana’s health care consumers, helping them ensure the best use of their health care dollars. The site currently contains data from 113 of the state’s 131 acute care/critical access hospitals, 285 of the 292 nursing homes in the state, nine private health plans, the state’s Medicaid program, and more than 1,000 pharmacies statewide. Data will be updated periodically.

 The initial launch of www.HealthFinderLA.gov is the first of many steps in providing meaningful information to the public. By late April 2010, DHH expects to include quality reports for Home Health and Dialysis Facilities on the site, making Louisiana the first state in the country to bring all of these measures together in one, easy-to-use Web site. An interactive map of all providers in the state will be added as well, allowing users to search by types of service, distance to their home, and directions. By the end of the year, DHH, with consultation of the Health Data Panel, will work to include the cost of many treatments and procedures and an accurate statewide directory of practicing physicians.

In the future, the site will become an interactive information portal where consumers will be able to create their own scorecard based on the measures and metrics that matter most to them.  Additionally, researchers will be able to run custom, web-based reports to dive into a detailed analysis of the results displayed on these pages.