There is significant interest in building the next generation of public reporting tools that will more effectively engage consumers and better enable them to make use of comparative performance information when selecting a provider.

Postscript

Research Agenda to Guide the Next Generation of Public Reports for Consumers

Published In: Medical Care Research and Review, v. 71, no. 5, suppl. Oct. 2014, p. 97S-107S

Posted on RAND.org on January 01, 2014

by Cheryl L. Damberg, Peggy McNamara

Research Question

  1. How can public reporting tools be made more effective?

There is significant interest in building the next generation of public reporting tools that will more effectively engage consumers and better enable them to make use of comparative performance information when selecting a provider. Demand for public reporting tools that make health care cost and quality information transparent is fueled by a variety of market forces underway. A host of public reporting efforts and studies have identified a number of challenges, highlighting that, we still do not understand how best to design public reports to meet the needs of the consumer. We identify five areas for additional research that, if addressed, could foster better design and delivery of quality and cost information to consumers.

Key Findings

This proposed research agenda identified five key areas for improvement:

  • Find out what consumers want to know about health care providers
  • Better understand how consumers make decisions
  • Learn how to improve design and delivery of reports
  • Assess reports' influence on consumer provider choices
  • Explore alternative ways to align measures and improve the data reported
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