Examining Public Reporting on Quality and Cost

Public reporting of providers’ performance has been a key development over the past decade in efforts to improve the quality of health care and lower its cost. It’s been widely assumed that by making this data public, underperforming providers will be motivated to improve, and consumers will use the information to pick the highest-quality providers offering care at the best value.

The recently released March issue of Health Affairs includes a cluster of articles about public reporting. As these papers demonstrate, however, the actual evidence about how much public reporting has spurred quality improvement or prompted consumers to make better choices is mixed.

The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) supported the publication of these papers...