title: Is Anyone Paying Attention to Physician Report Cards? The Impact of Increased Availability on Consumers' Awareness and Use of Physician Quality Information.
abstract: To determine if the release of health care report cards focused on physician practice quality measures leads to changes in consumers' awareness and use of this information.
  
  
  
  Data from two rounds of a survey of the chronically ill adult population conducted in 14 regions across the United States, combined with longitudinal information from a public reporting tracking database. Both data were collected as part of the evaluation for Aligning Forces for Quality, a nationwide quality improvement initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
  
  
  
  Using a longitudinal design and an individual-level fixed effects modeling approach, we estimated the impact of community public reporting efforts, measured by the availability and applicability of physician quality reports, on consumers' awareness and use of physician quality information (PQI).
  
  
  
  The baseline level of awareness was 12.6 percent in our study sample, drawn from the general population of chronically ill adults. Among those who were not aware of PQI at the baseline, when PQI became available in their communities for the first time, along with quality measures that are applicable to their specific chronic conditions, the likelihood of PQI awareness increased by 3.8 percentage points. For the same group, we also find similar increases in the uses of PQI linked to newly available physician report cards, although the magnitudes are smaller, between 2 and 3 percentage points.
  
  
  
  Specific contents of physician report cards can be an important factor in consumers' awareness and use of PQI. Policies to improve awareness and use of PQI may consider how to customize quality report cards and target specific groups of consumers in dissemination.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Administration, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.|Center for Health Care and Policy Research at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
authors.forename: Yunfeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Administration, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.|Center for Health Care and Policy Research at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
authors.forename: Dennis P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Scanlon
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Administration, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
authors.forename: Neeraj
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bhandari
authors.affiliation: Division of Health Policy & Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
authors.forename: Jon B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Christianson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001364:Awareness; D019985:Benchmarking / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010820:Physicians / Q000592:standards*; D058996:Quality Improvement; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Public reporting; consumer awareness; health care quality; health care report cards; physician quality information