BEV BUTULA: Site rushes hospital data to your fingertips

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The WHA Information Center, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Hospital Association, provides access to a variety of information.

According to its website, this information includes “data and reports about charges, utilization, quality and efficiency provided by Wisconsin hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and other healthcare providers.”

Specific data sets are available for sale. However, there are several publications that can be accessed directly from the website.

One publication of possible interest is the Guide to Wisconsin Hospitals. The guide outlines very specific information pertaining to each Wisconsin hospital. In this report, researchers can find data on occupancy rate, length of stay, employment, revenue, and expenses.

Another publication, Wisconsin Uncompensated Health Care Report, offers some interesting statistics regarding the various hospitals’ charity care and bad debt.

Another service available on the website is the Wisconsin PricePoint System. It is designed for consumers to check facility-specific services and charges. The researcher selects a type of service (example: inpatient, outpatient, urgent care), a city or county, a facility, and then the type of procedure. The results include numbers for that hospital and also compares it to other hospitals in the county and statewide.