Consumers of health care are becoming cost- and quality-conscious, and often choose their health plan on the basis of these criteria. Successful health systems will respond with more consumer-friendly information in the form of "score cards". This is a practical book for score card developers.

Foreward Preface 1. Reporting Quality in a Market-driven Health Care System(Daniel M. Harris and Pamela P. Hanes) 2. Oregon Consortium: A Model in Scorecard Development(Pamela P. Hanes) 3. Consumer Preferences: Issues of Perception and Measurement(Pamela P. Hanes and Holly B. Jimison) 4. Consumers Want Choice and Voice(Michael J. Garland, Barry F. Anderson, and H. Diana Jones) 5. Tailoring Choice Information to Special Populations(Pamela P. Hanes) 6. Eliciting, Measuring, and Reporting Consumer Satisfaction(Christine Edlund) 7. Measuring Health Care Quality: The Process and Outcomes of Care(Bruce W. Goldberg) 8. The Alchemy of Accountability: Science and Art of Consumer Scorecards(Pamela P. Hanes and Merwyn R. Greenlick) AppAndix A: A Consumer Guide to Selecting a Health PlanAppAndix B: A Request for Descriptive Navigational Information Index

In today?s competitive health care marketplace, providers, corporate and public purchasers, and health care executives are focusing their attention on quality, value, and accountability. At the same time, employers and state Medicaid programs are demanding providers and insurers to produce accurate accounts of their services. These conditions speak loudly to the growing need for consumer-oriented measurement tools and report cards. In Grading Health Care, editors Pamela P. Hanes and Merwyn R. Greenlick provide health care practitioners, administrators, and policymakers the information and guidance they need to create consumer scorecards that can reliably measure customer satisfaction. Written by pioneers in the field, the book examines Oregon Consumer Scorecard Consortium?s successful efforts to develop the first health care plan scorecard program. Hanes and Greenlick share the lessons learned from the consortium?s efforts to create dependable methods for measuring consumer satisfaction and guiding consumers to make informed choices among health plans. Grounded in both theory and practice, this book offers valuable resources that practitioners can use: · A discussion of the dimensions of health care delivery that consumers want most · A timely introduction to the science of developing consumer satisfaction surveys and quality performance measurements · Much-needed information on how to manage various stakeholders? interests, from state bureaucrats to consumer groups · A thoughtful and realistic analysis of both the promise and the limitations of consumers scorecards Grading Health Care provides a dependable resource and toolkit that can help health care professionals answer the critical question: How well is our health care plan serving the needs of our customers?

"Consumer choice and quality scorecards have been the subject of an extraordinary amount of rhetoric in the health care field. Finally, Hanes, Greenlick, and their colleagues have done us the enormous service of providing a thoughtful, comprehensive, and balanced exploration of the real issues." --Bruce Vladeck, former administrator, Health Care Financing Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1993-1997 "Grading Health Care is truly a first of its kind in a health care environment that is in great need of such practical guidance. Pamela Hanes and Mitch Greenlick have pulled together a series of easily understood, provocative essays on the art and science of quality reporting for a consumer audience. This book is must-reading for anyone interested in working through the complexities of translating abstract and often elusive quality information into understandable and consumer-friAndly formats." --Philip Lee, professor emeritus, University of California San Francisco Medical School and former assistant secretary of Health 1992-1997 "Consumer choice and quality scorecards have been the subject of an extraordinary amount of rhetoric in the health care field. Finally, Hanes, Greenlick, and their colleagues have done us the enormous service of providing a thoughtful, comprehensive, and balanced exploration of the real issues." --Bruce Vadeck, former HCFA administrator (1993-97) "The Oregon Scorecard Project and this book has, for the first time, brought together commonsense science and deep commitment to listen to the consumer and has produced new knowledge and insights in this complex area." --Clifton R. Gaus, former director of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1992-1996