We have been promised  a website, MyHospitals, that will enable us to find out the comparative performance of public hospitals, with plans to include private hospitals down the track.

Predictably enough, the website, due for launch next month, will initially focus on elective surgery and emergency department waiting times, with a range of safety and quality measures to come.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the website will be evaluated through ongoing focus groups, feedback through the website and a MyHospitals call centre.

But what does the community want to know about hospitals? And will the website be measuring what really matters if hospitals are to play a more proactive role in improving the population’s health (as distinct from keeping health ministers out of the hot seat)?

When I put these questions to more than 200 experts in health policy and public health this week (members of the Crikey Health and Medical Panel), they came up with a wider range of indicators than is planned for the website.

Their suggestions are worth a read, particularly if you or yours are heading to hospital as they suggest many useful tips and questions for surviving a stint in hospital.

Said retired Sydney GP Dr Peter Arnold: “I have taken to advising anyone who has had a relative admitted to hospital to be there with them almost all the time …”

On a similar note, when I suggested the website should include the quality of food available to patients and staff, some Croakey contributors commented that this was not the highest priority when patients are sometimes left unfed.

Helen Hopkins, of the National Rural Health Alliance, said: “In fact the biggest issue with food for patients and their families is whether the tray or drink is placed where the patient can reach it while they are lying in bed, and whether or not there are sufficient staff to help or encourage patients who are not able to feed themselves or are too sick or elderly to feel like eating or drinking. If family are not there to help, the tray is too often cleared untouched by kitchen staff whose role definition does not include patient care.”

Parking and transport problems may sound prosaic for those battling life and death situations, but are a common cause of complaint.

Said associate professor Ruth Colaguiri: “Before coming to the University of Sydney, I spent a total of almost 25 years in the public health system and as visitor to friends and family in hospital I can vouch that in NSW, parking charges at our public hospitals represent sheer exploitation by the government of people who are often already financially compromised. It is outrageous.”

Much of the focus internationally for websites such as MyHospitals has been on improving quality and safety of care, but the indicators might look quite different if equity considerations were a driving force.

Dr Andrew White, a paediatrician and senior lecturer at James Cook University, suggested the website should also include the proportion of indigenous patients, proportion of indigenous staff, and availability of indigenous liaison/interpreters.

The World Health Organisation director-general may have called climate change “one of the greatest challenges of our time”, but the issue has been noticeably absent from health reform discussions despite the sector’s sizeable contribution to emissions. Public health expert Dr Yvonne Luxford suggested the website should ask: “Is the hospital actively improving its environmentally sustainable practice? What steps is it taking to achieve this?”

Still on the subject of healthcare costs, the University of Melbourne’s Professor Peter Brooks suggested the website could include the cost of various procedures/beds, “to provide the community with an idea of the cost of health”.

But perhaps Dr Pieter Peach, a clinician and web innovator, had the wisest suggestion. MyHospitals should start small, he said.

“Adding too many features/datasets at the beginning is both a waste of time and money.  They should start with something simple, get that right, then add something else, and iterate again, getting and responding to feedback from the beginning.  This whole process is roughly known as agile web development. The site grows with the users, rather than appears out of nowhere with the state’s false assumptions as the foundation.”

Sounds like sensible advice that could be applied far more broadly — to health reform in general, for example — than just to MyHospitals.