Case Studies

Online Quality Reports are a Leap Forward in Displaying Variation in Care

Client: Regional Data-Pooling Collaborative, 2007-2009

Public-Private Collaboration Identifies, Quantifies Shortfalls in Care

The Puget Sound Health Alliance is a non-profit, non-partisan consortium of employers, insurers, health care providers, and consumers. Its aim is ambitious: to enhance health care consumerism, transparency, and value throughout region. Beginning in 2008, the Alliance began publishing online performance reports comparing medical organizations along fundamental dimensions of care quality.

Results were derived from a very large and secure repository of health service data, reflecting care delivered through time to the majority of insured residents in the Puget Sound region. Though technically challenging and politically sensitive, the inaugural report was met with broad acclaim.

This project called for sustained educational, advocacy, and consensus-building efforts involving all health system stakeholders, particularly Alliance committee and board members. Within this environment, technical work focused on appropriate statistical methods, optimal report design, and programs to validate data and verify results.

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