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About TalkingQualityNOTE: The contract that supports the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) program, as well as the TalkingQuality Web site, expired on June 27, 2012. The TalkingQuality Web site will be unavailable until the new contract is awarded. In the meantime, if you have questions about how to report CAHPS data, please call the CAHPS Technical Assistance Line at 301-427-1017. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is now working to award a new CAHPS contract, and when it is in place, the TalkingQuality Web site will be restored.
Purpose of TalkingQuality: To Improve Consumer ReportsTalkingQuality is a comprehensive resource and guide for organizations that produce and disseminate reports to consumers on the quality of care provided by health care organizations (e.g., hospitals, health plans, medical groups, nursing homes) and individual physicians. Sponsors of consumer reports share a common mission: Improving the quality of care that consumers receive. They also share a common challenge: How do you convey comparative information about health care quality in a way that achieves the following objectives?
TalkingQuality was created to help you answer this question. It offers:
While this site focuses on the challenges and process of consumer reporting, much of the guidance applies equally well to organizations producing reports on health care quality to drive quality improvement and to inform other audiences, such as providers of care, payers, employers, and other stakeholders. [ Back to top ] How TalkingQuality Can Help You It's not easy to talk to consumers about health care quality. We can all tell stories
about our own personal experiences with health care and convey our subjective impressions.
But it is quite another challenge to sum up in an objective way what we know about the
quality of health plans and providers in terms of their effectiveness, patient-centeredness,
safety, timeliness, equity, and efficiency. [1] Expert Advice and the Best Available Evidence of What WorksTalkingQuality will walk you through the decisions you have to make when developing and disseminating a quality report and give you practical advice based on what has been shown to work best. We've pulled together and organized ideas and advice from experienced sponsors, respected researchers in the field, and experts in health communications. We update the site periodically to let you know what's new in quality reporting. ExamplesTo produce TalkingQuality, we've combed through many reports to find innovative and effective ways to present and describe performance data. Also, the site includes a collection of consumer reports on quality called the "Report Card Compendium." You can use this searchable database to learn what's happening in your market, see how other organizations present data, and get ideas for communication strategies you'd like to emulate (or avoid). . Help in Setting Achievable GoalsThis site will support you in setting reasonable goals for your reporting initiative and assessing your progress so that you can determine how to improve your report and manage the expectations of funders, partners, and the media. Over the past decade or so, some projects have been deemed failures because they did not achieve objectives that were, in hindsight, unrealistic. One important purpose of TalkingQuality is to help you figure out what to expect from your audience and what it will take to effect measurable change. A Venue for Sharing New Findings.The consumer reporting field is hindered by the limited ways in which we can learn from each other. We invite you to tell us about your experiences with quality reporting and share findings from your own work (including evaluation reports) so that we can incorporate what you have learned into this site. Write to us at talkingquality@ahrq.gov. [ Back to top ] Common Elements of Report CardsThe public reporting of health care quality began in the early 1990's with a government-sponsored report on hospital mortality and a handful of local initiatives. Since that time, health care performance reports – commonly known as report cards -- have spread across the country. They are now produced by a variety of public, nonprofit, and commercial organizations, all seeking to educate and inform health care consumers about their options with respect to health plans and providers of care, such as physicians, nursing homes, hospitals, and medical groups. Health care report cards encompass a wide range of printed and electronic documents that present comparative information on the quality of different types of health care organizations. While they may vary in size, media, and content, these reports share some important common elements:
[ Back to top ] How Report Cards DifferWhile health care report cards share some common features, they can vary in significant ways. TalkingQuality aims to help report sponsors understand their options and choose strategies that suit the information they are presenting and the needs of their audience.
[ Back to top ] Developers of TalkingQualityThe TalkingQuality Web site builds upon a site originally launched in 2001. The
2009 release of an updated and expanded site is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality (AHRQ) through a contract with Westat, a research firm in Rockville,
Maryland. A team with expertise in public reporting developed the new site and will continue
to maintain it through 2012. The team works with reporting experts involved in AHRQ's CAHPS
Consortium as well as an Editorial Board composed of experienced report sponsors and
reporting experts.
[ Back to top ] Information SourcesThe material in this site is based on a review of the literature as well as interviews and publications (some unpublished) provided by a variety of sources, including:
Findings from specific research studies are identified with footnotes. [ Back to top ] [1] These six aims of quality
health care are defined in the Institute of Medicine's report, Crossing the Quality
Chasm.
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