A New Way to Look Up Infections, C-Sections and Other Hospital Highlights

The state Health Department has launched a new website that will give New Yorkers unprecedented access to information about healthcare providers.

The portal, which the state allowed WNYC to evaluate before release, is designed to help people examine hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, hospices and home health agencies, with the hope that they will use performance scores to inform where they go for treatment.

The data has been published in different Health Department sites before, but now it is all in one place. The hospital section has been overhauled, so that people can see how hundreds of facilities rate in dozens of medical services, from cancer treatment to emergency care to a wide array of surgical procedures.

Much of the website is devoted to information for expecting parents, including how often hospitals perform C-sections and give epidurals.

"Maternity information is often sought by consumers, and we have put it in one easily accessible section," said Mary Beth Conroy, the Health Department official overseeing the effort.

She said the website should not be the only place patients go to learn about care providers, but it is a good place to start.

"They need to keep in mind their relationship with their hospital, their relationship with their doctor, and use this information to inform their healthcare decision," she said, "not necessarily make their healthcare decision for them."