title: Health maintenance organization report cards: communication strategies versus consumer abilities.
abstract: Consumers have a hard time understanding health maintenance organization (HMO) report cards. Current HMO report cards do not consider three psychological factors that affect consumers' ability to use the report card: working memory (the ability to simultaneously retain and manipulate information), cognitive complexity of the card (the number of criteria that must be integrated to make a decision), and consumers' thinking abilities (ranging from concrete to abstract). Because working memory and thinking skills decline with age, older consumers may find it particularly difficult to interpret government-sponsored report cards.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hochhauser
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition; D003256:Community Participation; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services; D008568:Memory; D008606:Mental Processes; D008875:Middle Aged; D014481:United States