Users of Public Reports of Hospital Quality: Who, What, Why and How.: An Aggregate Analysis of 16 Online Public Reporting Web Sites and Users and Experts Suggestions for Improvement

摘要

States, community quality collaboratives, and others are investing millions of dollars in the sponsorship and development of public reports on the quality of hospital care. The hope is that these reports will stimulate quality improvement, increase accountability, and improve consumer choices. Although the major method of distributing these reports is through Web sites, it is not known who visits these public reporting Web sites or how Web site visitors use the data presented. This evidence gap leaves report sponsors with minimal guidance on how to construct and implement a report that will successfully engage consumers and providers. Two key indicators of success for a public reporting Web site are the number of people who access it and the experiences people have when using it. However, there is little publicly available information on these topics. In order to capture these two indicators, we worked with 16 hospital reporting sites affiliated with the AHRQ Chartered Value Exchange program over a 3-month period starting in February 2011. We used two tools: Web analytics to measure and analyze Web site usage patterns for all visitors to the 16 sites, and an online pop-up survey on each Web site to gather information through direct interaction with a subset of visitors. The resulting data were augmented with expert review of the Web sites.