Supporting Consumers in Using Information on Health Care Quality

The ultimate goal for comparative quality reports is for consumers and patients to use them. All of the recommendations in this Web site are intended to help you plan, design, and disseminate your report in a way that maximizes the likelihood that it will be understood and used. This section describes the kinds of background information and decision aids you can provide to support consumers in using quality information:

• Explain How Quality Information Can Be Used
• Help People Make Decisions
• Incorporate Decisionmaking Aids
• Provide Access to Information Intermediaries
• Help Consumers Start Conversations With Trusted Providers

Our growing ability to report a wide range of quality measures has stepped up the need for this kind of support. In addition to needing help in understanding individual measures or measure sets, people need help synthesizing and evaluating information on multiple topics such as clinical quality, patient experience, provider location, staffing ratios, and increasingly, costs.

Also in "Explain and Motivate"

• Why Numbers and Graphs Aren’t Enough
• Communicating Key Information Upfront
• Providing Detail for Those Who Want It
• Taking Advantage of the “Teachable Moment”
• Supporting Consumers in Using the Information