Provider Report Cards : A Guide for Promoting Health Care Quality to the Public

by Patrice L. Spath

• ISBN13: 9781556482502
• ISBN10: 1556482507
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-01-01
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Summary

Report cards are the result of market pressure for greater accountability in managed care. The intent behind them is to help consumers make wiser purchasing decisions. Report card initiatives originated with health plans, but it is fast becoming apparent that consumers believe quality measurement should extend to health providers_hospitals, home care agencies, long term care facilities, and doctors. This book prepares providers to meet the challenges of public-oriented report cards. Readers will learn what the public wants to know about the quality of their providers, how to display performance data in a manner that can be easily understood by the public, techniques for improving dissemination of performance information, strategies for minimizing product liability concerns, and methods for gathering performance data in various provider sites.

Author Biography

PATRICE L. SPATH, BA, ART, a health care quality specialist based in Forest Grove, Oregon, has extensive experience in quality and resource management initiatives. She was previously a regional councilor for the Health Care Division of the American Society for Quality and chair of the Quality Management Section of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). A much sought-after speaker, she has presented more than 350 educational programs on performance improvement, case management, utilization review, clinical paths, and outcomes management. She is the author of several books, video programs, and journal articles on these subjects. For AHA Press she was the editor of Clinical Paths: Tools for Outcomes Management, published in 1994; Medical Effectiveness and Outcomes Management: Issues, Methods, and Case Studies, published in 1996; and Beyond Clinical Paths: Advanced Tools for Outcomes Management, published in 1997. Information about her other publications can be found at her Web site at www.brownspath.com.Ms. Spath is a regular columnist for Hospital Peer Review and Hospital Case Management and is editor for The Quality Resource, the newsletter of the Quality Management Section of the AHIMA. She served on a work group of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research to assist in the development of a model for translating its clinical practice guidelines to medical review criteria, performance measure, and standards of quality. She was a member of the Clinical Guidelines Panel of the Veterans Health Administration and a member of the Clinical Path Work Group of the Assocation of Operating Room Nurses, Inc. Recently, she served as an on-line expert on outcomes management topics for the "Ask the Expert" feature of the Modern Healthcare Web site.

Table of Contents

About the Authors.

Foreword.

Preface.

Part 1: Designing and Disseminating Provider Report Cards.

1. Determining What Consumers Want to Know about Providers (Michelle H. Pelling, MBA, RN, and Patrice L. Spath, MA, ART).

2. Communicating the Provider's Message to the Public (Mary M. Krieg, RN, C, MS, and Patrice L. Spath, BA, ART).

3. Disseminating Provider Report Cards via the Internet (Charles E. Swain).

4. Recognizing the Legal Issues Surrounding Provider Report Cards (Alice G. Gosfield, Esq.).

5. Developing and Disseminating the Michigan Hospital Report (Mark Sonneborn, MS, CHE).

Part 2: Measuring Provider Performance.

6. Gathering Satisfaction Data to Share with the Public (J. Mac Crawford, RN, MS, PhD, and John F. Sena, PhD).

7. Assessing How Provider Health Care Programs Enhance Community Quality of Life (Don R. Rahtz, PhD, and M. Joseph Sirgy, PhD).

Additional Resources.

Index.