Publicly reporting information on hospitals' performance: What information is most important from the public's point of view?

Background: Many countries are engaged in various efforts to publicly report measures of hospitals' performance in order to support consumer decision-making and increase hospitals' public accountability. This research is part of a comprehensive study aimed at developing a national framework for the comparative performance evaluation of Israel's public general hospitals (PGHs).

Objective: To identify which domains of hospital performance would be of greatest interest to consumers when comparing hospitals' performance.

Methods: A telephone survey of a representative sample of Israel's total adult population (n=605). Participants were presented with 7 key domains of hospitals' performance and asked to indicate which would be most and least important for assessing hospitals' performance (domains included: (1)physicians' expertise, (2)nurses' expertise, (3)physicians' behavior towards patients, (4)nurses' behavior towards patients, (5)quality of medical outcomes, (6)inpatients' satisfaction, (7)structural features of the hospital and ease of access).

Findings: Most participants rated physicians' expertise as most important (68.4%). The second highest rated domain was quality of medical outcomes (12.6%). Only a few rated nurses' expertise as most important (1.8%). Approximately one fifth of participants were unable to state which domain would be least important (22%). Structural features of the hospital and ease of access were rated as least important by the highest number of participants (32.4%).

Conclusions: Public reports on PGHs' performance should include information about physicians' expertise in order to increase their value from the public's point of view. The information regarding physicians' expertise has to be meaningful and comprehensible in order to be useful in supporting consumers' choices.