With seemingly lightening speed, public reporting has grown. Although public reporting of hospital clinical outcomes has been ubiquitous for a number of years, what has changed is the speed with which a much wider range of performance information is being reported in much greater detail at national and local levels. Now public reporting of hospital, nursing home, and physician performance is fueled by the return to high healthcare inflation, which now consumes 15 percent of the gross domestic product. Insurers are reacting to these costs by pushing for “pay-for-performance” reimbursement systems as well as health insurance options that shift payment responsibility to consumers. Crucial to the success of these approaches is public reporting. Payers and employers have joined together to initiate a public national comparative balanced scorecard by January 2007 through their Consumer Purchaser Disclosure Project.

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