title: Attitudes of hospital leaders toward publicly reported measures of health care quality.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Public reporting of quality is considered a key strategy for stimulating improvement efforts at US hospitals; however, little is known about the attitudes of hospital leaders toward existing quality measures.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To describe US hospital leaders' attitudes toward hospital quality measures found on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Hospital Compare website, assess use of these measures for quality improvement, and examine the association between leaders' attitudes and hospital quality performance.
  
  
  METHODS
  We mailed a 21-item questionnaire from January 1 through September 31, 2012, to senior hospital leaders from a stratified random sample of 630 US hospitals, including equal numbers with better-than-expected, as-expected, and worse-than-expected performance on mortality and readmission measures.
  
  
  METHODS
  We assessed levels of agreement with statements concerning quality measures, examined use of measures for improvement activities, and analyzed the association between leaders' attitudes and hospital performance.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 630 hospitals surveyed, 380 (60.3%) responded. For each of the mortality, readmission, process, and patient experience measures, more than 70% of hospitals agreed with the statement that "public reporting stimulates quality improvement activity at my institution"; agreement for measures of cost and volume was 65.2% and 53.3%, respectively. A similar pattern was observed for the statement that "our hospital is able to influence performance on this measure"; agreement for processes of care and patient experience measures was 96.4% and 94.2%, respectively. A total of 89.7% of hospitals agreed that the hospital's reputation was influenced by patient experience measures; agreement was 77.4% for mortality, 69.9% for readmission, 76.3% for process measures, 66.1% for cost measures, and 54.0% for volume measures. A total of 87.1% of hospitals reported incorporating performance on publicly reported measures into their hospital's annual goals, whereas 90.2% reported regularly reviewing the results with the hospital's board of trustees and 94.3% with senior clinical and administrative leaders. When compared with chief executive officers and chief medical officers, respondents who identified themselves as chief quality officers or vice presidents of quality were less likely to agree that public reporting stimulates quality improvement and that measured differences are large enough to differentiate among hospitals.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Hospital leaders indicated that the measures reported on the Hospital Compare website exert strong influence over local planning and improvement efforts. However, they expressed concerns about the clinical meaningfulness, unintended consequences, and methods of public reporting.
authors.affiliation: Center for Quality of Care Research, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts2Division of General Medicine, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts3Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Peter K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Lindenauer
authors.affiliation: Center for Quality of Care Research, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts2Division of General Medicine, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts3Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Tara
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lagu
authors.affiliation: Section of General Internal Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, Department of Internal Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut5Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Yale-New Haven Hospital, N.
authors.forename: Joseph S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Ross
authors.affiliation: Center for Quality of Care Research, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts6School of Public Health and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
authors.forename: Penelope S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Pekow
authors.affiliation: Center for Quality of Care Research, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shatz
authors.affiliation: Center for Quality of Care Research, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hannon
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Medicine Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio.
authors.forename: Michael B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Rothberg
authors.affiliation: Center for Quality of Care Research, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts2Division of General Medicine, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts3Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Evan M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Benjamin
mesh_terms: D022126:Access to Information; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001290:Attitude; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006740:Hospital Administrators / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006761:Hospitals / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D058996:Quality Improvement; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States