The Move Toward Transparency in Health Care
<p>For several years, there has been widening interest in efforts to make information on the costs and quality of health care transparent and publicly available. Nevertheless, the public reporting of provider performance data is controversial.<br><br>A new <a href="/cnlib/pub/enews_clickthrough.htm?enews_item_id=26705&return_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecmwf%2Eorg%2Fpublications%2Fpublications%5Fshow%2Ehtm%3Fdoc%5Fid%3D449503%26%23doc449503">Commonwealth Fund report</a> by John M. Colmers provides a short history of efforts to report information on health system performance, explores the key policy issues in play, and offers lessons from the experience of public reporting efforts to date.<br><br>The report--prepared for the Fund's Commission on a High Performance Health System--says that while questions remain about the accuracy of reported data and the comparability of results, numerous studies have demonstrated the value of public reporting. Not only have such efforts enhanced and reinforced quality improvement efforts already under way, they have stimulated new efforts in areas where improvement is most needed.<br><br>Some of the topics covered in the report include:<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="3"><tr><td align="left" valign="bottom"><ul><li>What are the organizations that report performance data and what kinds of information do they report?</li><li>How and when should this information be reported?</li><li>What have been the results of efforts to date?</li><li>What federal legislation is likely to be considered by the new Congress?</ul> </td></tr></table></p>
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletters/ealerts/2007/feb/the-move-toward-transparency-in-health-care