Reporting Hospital Quality

AbstractPublic reporting of hospital performance holds tremendous promise for improving the care provided by hospitals. To date, however, consumers have failed to embrace public reporting, despite considerable efforts to promote it. We review a number of reasons that public reporting has failed to live up to expectations, and we make 10 recommendations to improve the value of public reporting for both patients and hospitals. We also review 3 leading performance reporting programs to evaluate how well they adhere to these recommendations. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2009;4:541–545. ？ 2009 Society of Hospital Medicine