Dying to Know: Public Release of Information about Quality of Health Care (Nuffield Trust Series)

Public disclosure of the comparative performance of health care providers is seen as one mechanism for improving quality of care and controlling health care costs. This report, the result of collaboration between the Nuffield Trust in London and RAND, assesses the U.S. experience with publicly releasing health care performance data, and offers guidelines for establishing public disclosure policy in the United Kingdom. Because the United States leads the world in reporting clinical information by hospital and by physician name, this report will be of interest to any country considering public release of performance data.