Public reporting of hospital quality: recommendations to benefit patients and hospitals.
Public reporting of hospital performance holds tremendous promise for improving the care provided by hospitals. To date, however, consumers have failed to embrace public reporting, despite considerable efforts to promote it. We review a number of reasons that public reporting has failed to live up to expectations, and we make 10 recommendations to improve the value of public reporting for both patients and hospitals. We also review 3 leading performance reporting programs to evaluate how well they adhere to these recommendations.
Rothberg
Michael B
MB
Center for Quality of Care Research, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts 01199, USA. Michael.Rothberg@bhs.org
Benjamin
Evan M
EM
Lindenauer
Peter K
PK
D022126:Access to Information; D019985:Benchmarking / Q000379:methods; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D006739:Hospital Administration / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D019221:Mandatory Reporting; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D011788:Quality of Life; D020379:Risk Adjustment; D016896:Treatment Outcome