Ultimately, healthcare is delivered locally and the quality of care varies widely even within the same community and even from department to department within the same hospital. Yet, healthcare consumers rarely have access to information that can help them choose who provides the service that may save their lives or cost them dearly in inappropriate care or hospital-acquired infections, for instance.

Transparency of quality performance data is essential for consumers to be able to make informed decisions about their own care. To that end, the California Hospital Assessment and Reporting Taskforce (CHART) was convened in 2004 with funding from the California HealthCare Foundation. The broad-based initiative involved active participation from all stakeholder groups: hospitals, government entities, health plans, doctors, employers and the business community, labor unions, and consumers. CHCC has two representatives that sit on CHART's Board of Directors and actively participate in the development of comparative performance data among California hospitals.

CHART works on a consensus basis among all of these stakeholders and as a result has developed 50 hospital performance measures that they agreed were indicative of quality and aligned with national initiatives like the Agency for Health Quality and Research and the National Quality Forum. More than 240 hospitals, representing 86 percent of the average daily hospital census in California, participate in the voluntary reporting effort, which is currently funded by health plans and hospitals. The team agreed on processes for data collection, aggregation, and auditing, and evaluated means to translate complex data into consumer-friendly decision-support tools.

CHART's efforts are emblematic of the kind of quality improvement programs that can be implemented effectively through partnerships and collaboration.

CHCC supports CHART's efforts to provide comparable, quality data to healthcare consumers so they can make better informed decisions about their own care.