However, health care organizations are ill-prepared for this public scrutiny of their measurement data. Health care performance measurement activities have traditionally been undertaken to provide individual caregivers and facilities with the information necessary to improve internal processes. Measures of health care performance are now being combined with other data to create publicly distributed report cards. Even clinicians find the intricacies of health care structure, process and outcomes can make the simplest performance measure a bewildering yardstick of quality. The general public cannot be expected to evaluate complex clinical data to assess health care quality.
People are most likely to base decisions about quality on the factors they can personally measure.
Health care providers can't just give consumers data showing the results of internal quality measures and expect them to make purchasing choices. Sophisticated process and outcome measurement data is unlikely to fulfill the needs of the general public. Researchers have found that compassion, communication skills, and respectful listening rank high on most consumers' lists of what they look for when selecting a health care provider. When designing provider report cards for the people in your community, planning is an important first step. The answers to these questions will influence what information is included on your consumer-oriented report card and the data presentation style.