Condition-specific performance information: assessing salience, comprehension, and approaches for communicating quality.

This study assesses how consumers view condition-specific performance measures and builds on an earlier study to test an approach for communicating quality information. The study uses three separate designs: a small experiment, a cross-sectional analysis of survey data, and focus groups. We test whether providing information on the health care context affects consumer understanding of indicators. Focus groups were used to explore how consumers view performance measures. The cross-sectional survey analysis used survey data from the experiment and the focus groups to look at comprehension and the salience of condition-specific performance measures. Findings show that a general consumer population does view condition-specific performance measures as salient. Further, the findings provide evidence that information on the health care context makes a difference in how consumers understand performance measures.