ihealthbeat:
Oklahoma Develops Web Site Rankings of State Nursing Homes: Oklahoma's Governor Brad Henry, unveiled a new state Web site that rate the quality of care of the state's nursing facilities and ranks the facilities from one to five stars.

The site provides ratings on 10 measures-some include:

• Quality of life;
• Resident/family satisfaction;
• Nursing turnover and retention;
• State survey compliance;

Government Technology reports Oklahoma's Governor, Brad Henry, is seeking to introduce legislation to faciliate prescription drug price comparison.

The governor is urging state lawmakers to approve establishing an online site called the Oklahoma Prescription Drug Retail Price Registry, otherwise known as the Consumer's Choice Registry. The Web site would allow consumers to easily search retail prices at state pharmacies for the 150 most-prescribed pharmaceuticals.

HealthDecisions.org tracks 7 states movement towards improving health care quality and transparency thorugh legislation or executive order and their advance towards the promise of a value-driven health care system for more Americans. This report focuses on initiatives undertaken by Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, Nevada, Arkansas, Utah and Oklahoma.

AHA News reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has opened to all U.S. hospitals its Web-based network for tracking healthcare-associated infections. It said the National Healthcare Safety Network has been improved to meet the needs of states with mandatory reporting of HAIs, and that eight states (California, Colorado, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia) plan to use the network in implementing mandatory reporting. CDC said the secured network allows hospitals to analyze the data and share it within a facility or with the general public if desired.

In June 2006, Aetna began providing consumers with online access to the rates it negotiates with physicians in several U.S. cities. In August 2006, Aetna posted new information that allows its members in some areas to access price data for the top 30 physician services, as well as physician performance data.

An reported today (03/30) in United Press International, Aetna will now provide Web access to its members to cost and quality data on individual doctors in five new cities. Physician data is available in all or parts of 16 states and the District of Columbia, giving one in five of the company's 36 million beneficiaries price information on their local doctors.