[Public reporting in health care: the impact of publicly reported quality data on patient steerage].

BACKGROUND

Public reporting (PR) has been gaining more weight as a mechanism for patient steerage. According to the theory of PR, patients use information about the quality of health care providers before making decisions and selecting health-care providers. This paper contributes further knowledge on the effectiveness of PR and identifies critical success factors. These should be taken into account when implementing PR in the German health care system.

METHODOLOGY

The peer-reviewed English, Spanish, and German language literature was searched in the following five databases: The Cochrane Library, Medline (via PubMed), ISI Web of Knowledge, EconLit, and PsycINFO (since 2005). In addition, reference lists of the included studies and reviews were screened in order to identify previously published studies.

RESULTS

In total, 21 studies were identified regarding the impact of 12 different PR instruments on patient steerage. An impact could be demonstrated in 9 studies, 7 studies showed mixed results, while 5 studies could not show any effect on patient steerage. 20 studies were carried out in the US environment, 1 study in Germany. The most researched instrument is the New York State Cardiac Surgery Reporting System (N=8).

CONCLUSION

PR can be effective in steering patients when seeking a health-care provider, especially for elective procedures. To be successful, information provided must be reliable, easily understandable, should further represent real news, and be disseminated widely. Besides this, it has to be applicable and modifiable according to individual preferences.