Dr. Peter Pronovost: 'It's extremely hard for patients' to choose the right hospital

The healthcare industry needs to make cost and quality data more easily accessible for patients so they can choose the "right" hospital for them, Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, argued in a Wall Street Journal blog post.

"Selecting the right hospital to receive care can save your life, lower your risks of getting a complication or even reduce your financial hardship," Dr. Pronovost, the director of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality and senior vice president for patient safety and quality for Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine. "The problem is that it's extremely hard for patients to make that judgment."

That's because the data is either difficult to find and interpret or isn't available to the public at all, according to Dr. Pronovost. Additionally, data comes from several sources, like the government, payers, ratings companies and journalism outlets, which can provide conflicting information.

He called for healthcare to put something similar to the Federal Accounting Standards Board in place. The FASB "sets requirements for the reporting of financial data," he wrote.

"For the sake of patients and healthcare organizations, we need a FASB-like body to provide [a] book of truth and help develop measures that matter to patients," Dr. Pronovost concluded.

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