5. Public Reporting as a Quality Improvement Strategy

Table H1. Hospital quantitative studies: columns 1-8 of 18 (pages H-1 to H-18) (continued)
Author, Year
(QA)
Wuebker
2008 45
(Fair)
1. Study Purpose
and/or a priori
2. Geographic 3. Study
Hypothesis: Location design
H1: The publication Rhine-Ruhr Multiple
of quality
area and Groups, Time
information has Colgne-Bonn Series
reduced patient
uncertainty.
Therefore
published hospitals
extend their market
share or case
numbers when
compared with
competing- nonpublishinghospitals
area, Germany
H2: From the total
of publishing
hospitals, those
hospitals with
overaverage
quality tend to be
preferred to
competing
hospitals with a
quality below
average. In other
words: “good
hospitals: should
be able to extend
their market shares
or case numbers in
comparison to
“poor hospitals”
* Public report descriptions are in Appendix E.
4. Sample/
Population
157 German
hospitals in two
regions, Rhine-
Ruhr (study
group) and
Cologne-Bonn
(control group)
5. Primary
Comparison 6. Outcomes
Case numbers, Case Numbers:
market share and Hospital case
quality before (2003- numbers
2005) and after public Market share 35:
reporting (2005-2006) Hospital market
share for the
market delineation
of 35km; Market
share 50: Hospital
market share for
the market
delineation of
50km;
Log_Distance:
Average
logarithmized
distance of the
treated patient to
the hospital
H-28
7. Public
Report Name
and
Description*
Klinikfuhrer
Rhein-Ruhr
(Clinic Guide),
74 hospitals in
the Rhine-
Ruhr region
voluntarily
participated.
Contains
patient
satisfaction,
case numbers,
process, and
outcome
indicators.
8. Context:
Environment
Characteristics
None