[Do physicians know and use mandatory quality reports?].

OBJECTIVE

Physicians should be principal recipients of quality reports because they play a major role in referral decisions. The purpose of this study was to determine physicians' awareness and use of Germany's mandatory hospital quality reports.

METHOD

A retrospective observational study was carried out through structured telephone interviews of a stratified random sample of 300 physicians working in ambulatory care in Germany. We analysed absolute and relative frequencies of physicians' awareness and use of quality reports. Additionally we analysed physicians' awareness and use of quality reports in relation to age, sex, specialty, practice type and region of practice using binary regression analysis.

RESULTS

Less than half of the physicians were aware of the quality reports. Younger physicians were significantly more aware of the reports but did not use them more often than their older colleagues. Overall 10 % of the physicians already used them for counselling patients. Taking physicians' use of online comparative hospital guides into account, the combined total use was 14 %.

CONCLUSIONS

Germany's mandatory hospital quality reports play only a minor role in physicians counselling of patients who need hospital care because too few physicians know and use the reports.