AHASTAT blog: For report cards, the answer is not always more information

Hospitals and health systems support displaying quality information in an understandable and accessible way, but report cards must be designed with care, writes Nancy Foster, AHA vice president of quality and patient safety policy, in an AHASTAT blog post today. “A blog post in Health Affairs poses the question: Will Hospitals Help or Hinder a Better Report Card?” Foster notes. “The answer is that hospitals and health systems have led the way in developing transparent reporting of quality and patient safety data. As a creator of Hospital Compare, a consumer-oriented website that provides information on how well hospitals provide recommended care to their patients, the hospital field strongly supports transparency, and leads in sharing quality and safety information so that patients can make an informed choice about their health care… The answer is not more information for the sake of transparency. It’s providing the right information that truly helps hospitals improve patient care and enables patients and their families to make informed choices for their health care needs.”