Public Reporting

Publicly available information on healthcare performance encourages transparency and allows patients to make informed choices for better care. Cumulative effects of informed choices contributes to improvement across the entire healthcare system and can be an important driver of engagement to help focus on what matters most to patients.

Metrixcare Public Reporting delivers numerous benefits by driving healthcare improvement through greater patient choice. Public reporting can also enhance the profile, reputation and market share of healthcare organisations.

However, public reporting initiatives present many challenges and pitfalls. Generally, consumers don’t believe that there is actually a quality gap in healthcare. They assume that healthcare services are always safe, efficient and of high quality. Consumers define quality differently to providers which means that any public reporting projects must ensure that performance information is meaningful and easy to understand for the purpose of patient choice in making decisions about their care.

There are also dangers in making too much information available which can be counter-productive. Added to this are tensions between internal and external reporting requirements which can inadvertently encourage gaming, cream skimming & blame shifting by healthcare providers if not done carefully within an environment of trust and transparency.