Imagine shopping for a hospital like you'd shop for a car. You pick your procedure and figure out what comes with it -- anesthesia, an overnight stay, three months of physical therapy, weekly return visits.

Then you get online to the Blue Book of hospitals and start comparing hospital costs for your procedure, how your insurance works in and what the quality rankings are. Armed with all the information, and relinquishing the pipe dream for a sunroof, you make a logical decision.

That's the vision several health care organizations in Utah want to reach, a vision that got a step or two closer at midnight Monday when two new Web sites became active. Utah CheckPoint and Utah PricePoint compare quality marks, and procedure and hospital stay costs for almost every hospital in the state.

The best part is, the sponsors say, it's not just a jumble of numbers and abbreviations that Joe Public only gets on "ER."

"That was our biggest concern," said Jill Vicory, director of member and community affairs at Utah Hospitals and Health Systems Association. "We wanted to make sure it was really useful, not just another tool no one can use."

The idea for the two Web sites, which are sponsored by the association, the Utah Department of Health and HealthInsight, came during the 2006 legislative session, when several legislators expressed an interest in providing tools from which consumers would actually benefit, she said. A committee formed and started doing research, in the process finding the PricePoint model in Wisconsin. Utah is now one of five states to offer a Web site of this nature.

Vicory cautioned that the numbers didn't tell the whole story; each patient is different and many people have insurance; insurance companies often contract with specific hospitals and thus patients will get a deeper discount at the preferred hospital.

"It is just a starting point, but it does provide a fair comparison between hospitals," she said.

Utah CheckPoint has just three health issues on it as of yet -- heart attack, congenital heart failure and pneumonia. It addresses quality issues such as the percentage of patients given necessary assessments or specific medications before, during or after the hospital visit.

Wu Xu, director of the state Office of Health Care Statistics, said these Web sites supplement the reports the state releases throughout the year, as well as making it more accessible to patients. None of this information is new or previously unavailable, but it still increases the transparency of health care because now patients will know where to find it.

"Health care is so complication they need a lot of information," she said. "I think the consumers want to know more on clinical care."

Most of the hospitals in the state are participating with the two Web sites, and Vicory said all are expected to. Most of the information being put out is available already, people just don't know where to find it. The participants believe these Web sites will help people take more responsibility for their health care, especially in light of rising costs.

"It's a good starting point, but we have a long way to go," she said.

Heidi Toth can be reached at 344-2543 or htoth@heraldextra.com.

For more information, go to www.utcheckpoint.org or www.utpricepoint.org.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.