Medicare's Hospital Compare website rates your local hospital care

Have you wondered how your area hospitals stack up in terms of the quality of care they provide? Emergencies obviously call for rushing to the nearest hospital. But when you have time to plan, it is worth doing some research and finding out which hospitals do the best job of caring for their patients.

Medicare's Hospital Compare website has made it easier for you to check that. The site has overall star ratings to help you better understand which hospitals are top performers, which are average and which need improvement. The ratings range from one to five stars, with five being the best.

The Hospital Compare site helps compare hospitals on the basis of such factors as clinical outcomes, customer satisfaction and patient safety.

The just-updated overall star ratings offer a snapshot of particular hospitals' quality of care, by summing up individual measures of hospital performance already posted on the website. The ratings reflect such factors as how often patients get infections after surgery, how long patients must wait in the emergency department before seeing a doctor or nurse, and how likely patients are to get readmitted to the hospital after a heart attack.

Here are the scores for some Lee County area hospitals: Austin ? Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas ? 2; North Austin Medical Center - 4; St. David's Medical Center - 5; Seton Medical Center Austin - 3; St. David's South Austin Medical Center - 4; Brenham ? Scott and White Hospital - 4; Bryan ? St. Joseph Regional Health Center - 4; College Station ? Baylor Scott and White Medical Center - 4; College Station Medical Center ? 4; La Grange ? St. Mark's Medical Center - 4; Round Rock ? Round Rock Medical Center - 5; Scott and White Hospital - 4; Temple ? Scott and White Medical Center Temple - 3.