A Mainland health information company that is attempting to quantify where you can get the best value for your hospital dollar has identified Kailua's Castle Medical Center and 'Aiea's Kapi'olani Medical Center at Pali Momi as being among the top values in Honolulu.

The ranking by Data Advantage LLC shows the two Honolulu hospitals as being among the about 370 providing the best value in the largest 100 markets in the nation. The hospitals were judged on a variety of statistical measures including those for quality, affordability and efficiency, and patient satisfaction.

"Value can be a tricky subject, mostly because value can mean different things to different people," the report said. "To measure value in a comprehensive manner for the first time, we have taken great care to use objective, quantitative data that are consistent and complete across the United States."

The value index comes at a time when there is an increasing amount of publicly available information about the performance of hospitals, doctors and nursing homes. Sites such as Hospital Compare and Nursing Home Compare are operated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, while private efforts such as those from Health Grades and Leapfrog are also available.

Data Advantage notes the study also comes as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is looking at value-based purchasing in Medicare services. It is contemplating tying a portion of hospital payments to performance on quality measures as it looks for ways to become a more prudent purchaser of high-quality healthcare for Medicare beneficiaries.

The Data Advantage's information is available at www.hospitalvalueindex.com. An abstract of the report doesn't address why people pick hospitals now, including whether the decisions involve proximity, doctor's recommendations or hospital reputation for certain types of care.

It shows Castle Medical Center, a 160-bed facility serving Windward O'ahu, scored in the top three-quarters of value hospitals in terms of affordability and efficiency and patient satisfaction.

Kapi'olani Medical Center at Pali Momi scored in the top three quarters of affordability and efficiency along with quality. The 116-bed hospital serves West O'ahu.

The study only looked at general acute care hospitals in areas with a population greater than 600,000. Therefore, no Neighbor Island hospitals were analyzed. Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children wasn't in the survey because of its emphasis on women's and children's care.

Other hospitals the authors looked at on O'ahu included Hawaii Medical Center-East, Hawaii Medical Center-West, Kuakini Medical Center, The Queen's Medical Center, Straub Clinic & Hospital and Wahiawa General Hospital.