Performance Reports on Quality -- Prototypes, Problems, and Prospects

In recent years, it seemed that regular performance reports on the quality of health care would soon be de facto if not de jure national policy. Several states established statewide reporting systems for hospitals. Voluntary coalitions of employers and health plans developed performance-report prototypes and began pilot testing. The Clinton administration's proposal for comprehensive health care reform1 and those of its competitors -- proposals from Representative Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) and Senator John Chafee (R-R.I.) -- included provisions for federally mandated reports on quality.Comprehensive health care reform in the United States is now dead. The prospect of a national reporting . . .