One important change that would truly reform healthcare would be to make healthcare performance more transparent, that is, to start reporting on doctor and hospital outcomes: do they make patients better?; how often do patients receive the proper medical care?; what are the re-admittance rates?; etc. Reporting results such as these gives power to healthcare consumers to choose providers who will give them the best care.

These same reports are beneficial to the doctors and hospitals in the reports. With the report data in hand, both doctors and hospitals can get a clear idea on how they compare to their colleagues and competitors. In order to keep getting patients, both groups will have to continuously improve the care they are providing, which leads to a higher quality of care for all consumers.

How does performance reporting and transparency fit into the healthcare bill recently signed by President Obama? According to Washington Post writer Ezra Klein, there are provisions in the bill to increase transparency. Hospitals will be required to post prices for their services. Research, supported by independent financing, will be done to determine relative effectiveness of various treatments. Insurance companies will have to present standardized information, consumer ratings, and quality measures. These and other requirements are a good starting point for a much-needed level of transparency and performance reporting in our healthcare system.

Quality Quest has been working on increasing transparency in the central Illinois region for several years now. Using prescription claims data, we report the generic prescribing rates for physicians, physicians’ assistants, and nurse practitioners in seven different medical specialties. The first report was published in 2007 and since then, reports have been produced and shared with clinicians each quarter. Other Quest efforts include data on quality colonoscopies, preventive care, diabetes care, and more. These reports are available to the public on our website on the Quality Reports page.  Look for additional reports in the future.