Terms of Use

Educational purpose

This website provides educational information to help patients, families, caregivers, and advocates use publicly reported healthcare quality and patient safety information. It does not provide medical advice, diagnose a condition, recommend a specific facility, guarantee safety or outcomes, or replace consultation with qualified healthcare professionals. For an emergency, seek immediate care.

Permitted use and sharing

You may use the guides and tools for personal, noncommercial decision support. You may link to this website and quote brief portions with clear attribution to Stephen L. Davidow and a link to the original page.

People invited to review the website may privately share screenshots or excerpts with the author for the limited purpose of providing feedback. Patient advocates, educators, healthcare organizations, and others who want to reproduce, distribute, adapt, translate, publish, or incorporate substantial portions into another resource should obtain written permission first.

Copyright and prohibited reuse

Except for public data and identified third-party material, the website’s original content—including its explanations, questions, worksheets, reports, methodology descriptions, selection and organization of material, and original presentation—is © 2026 Stephen L. Davidow. All rights reserved.

Without written permission, you may not substantially copy, republish, scrape for republication, sell, license, adapt, remove attribution from, or incorporate the original content into another website, application, dataset, publication, training product, or commercial service. You also may not represent this website or its content as your own.

Public data and third-party resources

The website references or organizes information from CMS, Medicare Care Compare, The Leapfrog Group, The Joint Commission, accreditation organizations, state agencies, and other sources. Their data, names, trademarks, ratings, and materials remain subject to their respective ownership, terms, definitions, and reporting periods. Links to third-party websites are provided for convenience and do not imply control of or responsibility for those websites.

Independence and no endorsement

This is an independent educational resource developed by Stephen L. Davidow. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by CMS, Medicare, The Joint Commission, The Leapfrog Group, or other organizations whose information is referenced. Inclusion of a facility, rating, source, accreditation status, question, or comparison does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation.

Accuracy, currency, and availability

Public data, ratings, definitions, reporting periods, website links, and facility information can change. Information may be delayed, incomplete, suppressed, unavailable, or affected by differences in methodology. Visitors should verify the most recently available information at the original source and ask a facility to explain important discrepancies.

Reasonable efforts are made to present useful information, but the website is provided without a guarantee that all content, calculations, links, reports, or services will always be accurate, complete, current, uninterrupted, or suitable for an individual decision.

Visitor-entered information and privacy

Do not enter protected health information, medical records, account credentials, or other sensitive personal information into the guides or feedback forms. Information printed, downloaded, or stored on a visitor’s device is the visitor’s responsibility. Feedback should not be used to report an emergency, complaint, or adverse event.

Changes and permission requests

These terms may be updated as the website develops. Permission requests or questions about reuse may be submitted through the site feedback page. When requesting permission, describe the material, intended audience, format, and whether the use is commercial.

Effective and last updated: September 24, 2026.