The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently began publishing performance data on hospital-acquired infections, certain surgical complications, and avoidable deaths on its Hospital Compare Web site. In a new post on The Commonwealth Fund Blog, Anne-Marie J. Audet, M.D., and Shreya Patel, M.P.H., say the new measures will lead to a healthy process of public vetting and debate. "As the data are released, many eyes will be looking at them, probing their implications, comparing, and conducting root-cause analyses," they say. "This attention can only lead to improvement—both in the measures themselves and in the care delivered."
