Media Contact: Gary Gaumer (781) 608-6041

Healthcare Quality Web Site Targeted to Underserved Populations in Boston

Boston—Simmons College’s Graduate School of Health Sciences and Department of Health Care Administration has launched a new website that will gauge the experiences of Boston-area healthcare users who have their services paid for by public programs. USisUS.org, which stands for the United States is Us, aims to reach out to minority populations and healthcare users who receive aid through programs such as Medicaid, VA, Commonwealth Care and others. Users of the site can review these comments and ratings about particular health care providers.

USisUS is designed to empower members of this population by allowing them to rate the quality of care they and their families receive. And, the site allows the users to review the service quality they experience when they contact the public program offices and 800 numbers. These ratings and commentary about facilities and the public programs will be provided for free to managers of the health facilities and the public programs.

The site has been funded by a donor to Simmons and is staffed by graduate students.

Faculty supervisor of the project, Dr. Gary Gaumer commented “The pilot testing we have done so far on the USisUS site has been very encouraging, with users expressing joy about being able to give real voice to their concerns about service quality in the clinics and other facilities they use. We hope that this voice will help managers to improve the patient experience for these population groups.”

USisUS staff is currently reaching out to the community and healthcare advocacy groups to make people in the target groups aware of the Web site. USisUS is also accepting feedback on how better to reach the target audience.