How to Find the Best Hospital

It's not easy to find good Chinese food in Florida. I've checked out several places since moving recently, but something always puts me off -- the cleanliness of the place, the service or the food itself. After asking around, I finally found a restaurant I like near my son's school. Clean, good service, tasty food and only moderately higher prices.

All this time and effort for a decent plate of chicken cashew and an egg roll.

I doubt many people do this much research when they, or someone in their family, are having a procedure done at a hospital. But you probably should. After all, wouldn't you want to know whether a hospital has low rates of infection, sufficient nursing staff, is patient focused and has performed the procedure many times with good rates of success? And while you may not be very sensitive to the cost of a bowl of fried rice, you might want to know how much a hospital visit would set you back.

I wish I could tell you finding this information was easier. I've been following the so-called trend toward "greater transparency" about the cost and quality of medical care for years, and while there have been many advances, they are still not very transparent to you or me.

Your choice of hospital will most likely rest on your physician, your insurance company and perhaps advice from friends and family. But if you are willing to do a little homework you can find a few good nuggets of information out there.