Hospital Responses to Public Reporting of Quality Data to CMS: 2005 Survey of Hospitals.

In April 2005, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Health Quality Alliance launched Hospital Compare, a web-based tool that helps acute care and critical access hospitals publish quality data for 17 clinical measures on heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia. Approximately 4,200 hospitals across the country currently use Hospital Compare to disclose their scores for some or all of the 17 measures. On the basis of a nationally representative survey of senior hospital executives (typically the vice president of medical affairs or the chief medical officer) and directors of quality improvement departments, this report assesses how public reporting and Hospital Compare have affected hospitals. The assessment addresses experiences with public reporting; reactions of the media, payers, and purchasers to the data; changes in quality improvement efforts as a result of public reporting; and hospital leadership views on the federal role in future quality improvement programs, including pay for performance.