Wednesday, March 29, 2017
12:30 – 2pm
Waterhouse Room, Gordon Hall
25 Shattuck Street
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA 02115
Public reporting has been proposed as a tool for improving the transparency and quality of health care delivery. Hospitals now dedicate substantial resources towards reporting requirements for measures such as mortality for selected conditions (e.g. pneumonia, heart failure) and outcomes of cardiac procedures. However, the enormous effort and expense supporting public reporting have raised questions about whether such programs actually improve public health, or may even be misleading or harmful. For example, risk adjustment tools may lack the refinement necessary to yield sound results, forcing a delicate balance between providing more information to the public with only limited context. Also, there may be potential unintended consequences of public reporting, such as adverse selection, that may actually worsen clinical outcomes.
What, ultimately, are the ways in which public reporting can be shaped to improve the quality of care, transparency, and outcomes?
Experts:
Robert Yeh, MD
Director, Richard and Susan Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School
Thomas Lee, MD
Chief Medical Officer, Press Ganey