Access to enforcement and disciplinary data: information practices of state health professional regulatory boards of dentistry, medicine and nursing.

This article describes a study of public access to enforcement and disciplinary information provided by the websites of health professional regulatory boards. The study explored the current state of transparency by specifically examining the availability of disciplinary data on the websites of state boards of medicine, nursing and dentistry. Web sites were reviewed regarding availability of enforcement and disciplinary data on the aforementioned state boards in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The study found that there is more information about individual practitioners available from the boards than ever before. On the other hand, there has not been a comparable increase in information about the administrative practices and the work of the boards. Increased availability of this information would allow public administration and policy researchers to develop performance indicators of state boards and assist in improving policy decisions and allocation of resources.