A hospital is a health care facility that provides patients with treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals are set up to deal with many kinds of disease and injury. Hospitals typically have an emergency department (ER) to deal with immediate and urgent threats to health.

Some patients go to the hospital for diagnosis, treament, or therapy and then leave without staying overnight. This is referred to as "outpatient" care. Other patients are admitted and stay overnight (or an extended period of time) for care. This is referred to as "inpatient" care.

How to select the best hospital
Choosing a hospital is a decision that can affect your health and the rest of your life. Unfortunately, most people don’t even consider their options and simply use whichever hospital is closest. This is probably because with over 6,500 hospitals nationwide, choosing the right one can be overwhelming. The key is to research your choices so you find a hospital that fits your needs and provides quality care. Below is a list of factors to consider when selecting a hospital:

1. Specialty services: Where to seek care depends on what you need. Most hospitals are equipped to handle most conditions, and in an emergency you should always head to your nearest hospital emergency room. However, many hospitals exist which specialize in certain treatment areas. Some examples and links to specific searches are below.

• Children’s hospitals
• Long Term Acute Care Hospitals (LTAC Hospitals, or LTACHs) provide intense treatment and care for patients who will need on average at least 25 days of stay in a hospital
• Psychiatric hospitals
• Rehabilitation hospitals specialize in recovery after surgery, accidents or severe conditions like stroke.

2. Location In an emergency, the closest hospital is always the best, if not the only, option. That’s why it is important to consider proximity to quality hospitals when choosing a new home. In other situations such as elective surgeries or childbirth, location may not be as important as the quality of care the hospital provides or their track record for treating patients with dignity and respect.

3. Quality: Quality is often overlooked when choosing a hospital but it is extremely important. Below is a brief overview of hospital quality data available on our website.

The nation’s largest purchaser of health care is the federal government. The agency in charge of buying health care, called CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), monitors the quality of health care it purchases by requiring hospitals to report information in six different categories:

1. Heart attack
2. Heart failure
3. Pneumonia
4. Surgical infection prevention and mortality
5. Children's asthma
6. Use of medical imaging

These categories each have several pieces of data (called measures) that change often. But rest assured, the analysts at WhereToFindCare.com continuously monitor and update them as often as possible.

Compare quality scores
WhereToFindCare.com gives you two quality scores to assist you in choosing a hospital: the government quality score and the consumer quality score.

WhereToFindCare.com simplifies data from CMS into one score called the government quality score. This score is displayed in your search results and on each hospital’s profile page. Each hospital’s government quality score is the percentage of measures that met or exceeded the national average. Sometimes, however, CMS feels a hospital did not have enough patients to make a judgment on its quality. In these cases, government quality scores are not displayed. When available, detailed quality information is available on the quality tab of each hospital’s profile page.

The consumer quality score is the percentage of people who rated their hospital on WhereToFindCare.com and said they received quality care. This experience-based hospital satisfaction score cannot be found elsewhere today except by word of mouth.

Have you had experiences with hospitals in your area? Share your experiences with other users by rating the hospital on WhereToFindCare.com. Your feedback is invaluable to others in your community searching for hospitals.

4. Recommendations: Word of mouth recommendations can tell us whether we can get along with providers on a personal level. Ask friends, family, and other associates if they have had experiences with the hospitals on your list. You can also find word of mouth recommendations on WhereToFindCare.com.

5. Consider what each hospital offers: Once you’ve narrowed down your list, you should consider all the other things each hospital has to offer. In your search results, click on the name of a hospital to see more information such as photos, video tours, amenities, description of available services, insurance accepted, contact information, beds, and much more.

How can WhereToFindCare.com help you find the best hospital?
Use the hospital search tool above to locate hospitals in your area. With the report generated, you can view quality information, word of mouth recommendations from people in your community, exceptional healthcare workers at hospitals(we call them Care Stars), photos, video tours, services provided, insurance accepted, contact information, driving directions, and much more.