Abstract
BackgroundPublic reporting of government funded (public) hospital performance data was mandated in Australia in 2011. Studies suggest some benefit associated with such public reporting, but also considerable scope to improve reporting systems.MethodsIn 2015, a purposive sample of 41 expert informants were interviewed, representing consumer, provider and purchasers perspectives across Australia’s public and private health sectors, to ascertain expert opinion on the utility and impact of public reporting of health service performance. Qualitative data was thematically analysed with a focus on reporting perceived strengths and barriers to public reporting of hospital performance data (PR).ResultsMany more weaknesses and barriers to PR were identified than strengths. Barriers were: conceptual (unclear objective, audience and reporting framework); systems-level (including lack of consumer choice, lack of consumer and clinician involvement, jurisdictional barriers, lack of mandate for private sector reporting); technical and resource related (including data complexity, lack of data relevance consistency, rigour); and socio-cultural (including provider resistance to public reporting, poor consumer health literacy, lack of consumer empowerment).ConclusionsPerceptions of the Australian experience of PR highlight important issues in its implementation that can provide lessons for Australia and elsewhere. A considerable weakness of PR in Australia is that the public are often not considered its major audience, resulting in information ineffectually framed to meet the objective of PR informing consumer decision-making about treatment options. Greater alignment is needed between the primary objective of PR, its audience and audience needs; more than one system of PR might be necessary to meet different audience needs and objectives. Further research is required to assess objectively the potency of the barriers to PR suggested by our panel of informants.
Highlights
Public reporting of government funded hospital performance data was mandated in Australia in 2011
Strengths of the current system of performance data (PR) Compared to weaknesses and barriers, participants had little to say about the strengths of PR
No consumer informants mentioned ‘enabling consumers informed choice’ as a strength of PR systems – it was cited by a provider
Summary
Public reporting of government funded (public) hospital performance data was mandated in Australia in 2011. Australia has joined a growing number of countries to report performance data of health service providers into the public domain [1,2,3,4]. Underpinning this trend are goals of increasing healthcare service-provider accountability and transparency, enabling consumers to have greater information and choice when making decisions about their healthcare, encouraging improved quality of care, and improving provider performance and productivity [2, 5,6,7,8]. The vast majority of research on PR stems from the USA, culturally and systemically binding those results to the US health system and its people
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