Health Affairs, 22, no. 2 (2003): 72 doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.22.2.72 © 2003 by Project HOPE	New Online   Pay Cuts For Medicare Docs   Access To Care Woes   Public Coverage More Efficient   Empowering Consumers

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Information

PROLOGUE

Public Reporting Of Health Quality Information

Critics have questioned whether consumers have the knowledge, interest, and wherewithal to interpret and intelligently use public "report cards" on health care quality. Then there are the logistical problems of providing such information. One such critic, physician and former New York State Health Commissioner Mark Chassin, wrote some time ago: "Even assuming that consumers still have this kind of choice and setting aside the problem that many important consumer choices must be made before consumers know what hospital services they will need, do we really believe that a large number of consumers will select hospitals or physicians in this manner? One might argue that health plans will, even if consumers will not. But do we really expect health plans to build complex networks of hospitals that are disease- or procedure-specific?...Given the magnitude of these difficulties, it is perhaps not surprising that competition now occurs based almost solely on price" (Health Affairs, May/June 1997).

Health information reporting has progressed since then, as demonstrated in the papers that follow. The first paper reports on a nationwide survey of how hospitals disclose their medical errors to the public. This type of quality information has captured public interest and led to new reporting standards by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, effective 1 July 2001. Rae Lamb and colleagues found that although there is still great variation in how hospitals tell patients about medical errors, most hospitals do disclose harms caused by medical care. The second paper, by Judith Hibbard and colleagues, reports on a Wisconsin-based study of the impact of public versus private reporting of hospital quality performance data. They found that making quality information public does make a difference in stimulating hospitals to improve areas in which their performance was low. Finally, a consortium of leading quality researchers and advocates offers a call to action for improving the effectiveness and impact of publicly reported health information in a way that truly engages the consumer in the quality improvement process.

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