Patient awareness of healthcare report cards grows, but slowly

Chronically ill patients are becoming increasingly aware of comparative physician and hospital performance reports, but the growth has been slower than expected, according to a study conducted by a professor at Penn State in University Park, Pa.

Dennis Scanlon, PhD, professor of health policy and administration and director of the Center for Health Care and Policy Research at Penn State, and his co-authors surveyed nearly 12,000 chronically ill patients across the nation to assess public awareness around report cards.

They found the public awareness of hospital quality reports barely changed between 2008 and 2012, whereas the awareness of physician quality reports changed moderately, from 12.8 to 16.2 percent on average. Dr. Scanlon also noted significant variations in the levels of and changes in awareness across geographic populations and groups of patients with specific chronic diseases.

Public awareness may be heading in the right direction, but it is doing so at a pace that is surprisingly slow given the considerable efforts the industry has made in recent years to make comparative healthcare quality information more accessible to the public.

"There's a large focus on producing these reports with the right intention of getting consumers more engaged, much like we do with ratings for restaurant meals or automobiles, but I think the evidence suggests we still have a lot of work to do," said Dr. Scanlon.

The researchers concluded that more attention should be paid to finding approaches for the dissemination of hospital and physician report cards that would increase awareness among chronically ill patients. They also suggested drawing lessons from ratings of other products and services that are frequently used by consumers.

 

 

More articles on report cards and quality metrics:
3 experts discuss quality metrics in healthcare: 9 takeaways
TRALE introduces 'report card' for health reimbursement account software
Report cards don't influence surgical outcomes or reduce complications, studies find

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