Forks Community Hospital is one of about 2 percent of hospitals nationwide that are not participating in a new Web site that measures quality of care.
As a rural hospital with a low volume of patients, Forks’ figures are so small that they would be statistically irrelevant compared with larger institutions, said Administrator Camille Scott.
The cost and staff time to compile and report the data is not worth the outcome, she said.
Scott called Hospital Compare, a federal Web site that launched earlier this month, a “good project” but said she would rather participate in a project that gives a more accurate indication of where the hospital excels and where it falls short.
Forks would have nothing to contribute to some of Hospital Compare’s quality measures, such as how many heart attack patients are given smoking cessation classes, because such patients are immediately transferred out to a larger hospital that can handle their needs, Scott said.
Critical access
Because Forks is a critical access hospital, it is not penalized for not participating in Hospital Compare.
The hospital already belongs to a group that measures Forks’ data against other hospitals its size, and Scott said she hopes to see something similar soon with Hospital Compare.
Right now, “there’s a lot of hospitals, small like myself, that say we just can’t do it,” Scott said.
