Hospital report cards change care, study says
February 1, 1998
Hospital report cards change care, study says
A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association1 suggests that consumer-focused reports that rate the quality of care provided by hospitals and health plans go beyond helping patients make better choices about health care. They also lead to to quality improvements in the facilities themselves.
In the study, researchers at the University of Missouri in Columbia examined service improvements in obstetrics at 82 Missouri hospitals. They found that, within a year of the release of a consumer-focused report card about their obstetrics care, half of all the hospitals had either upgraded their practice of care delivery or planned to do so. The researchers found that the trend was greatest in areas where hospitals were forced to compete for patients.
Service improvements included car seat programs, the introduction of nurse educators for breast-feeding, and formal transfer agreements. In addition, following the release of patient care reports, the hospitals surveyed brought down their rates of cesarean sections and ultrasounds, and brought up their rates of normal vaginal delivery after cesarean section.