A recent Johns Hopkins study finds patients “walking in blind” with little access to quality and outcomes data. Only 21 states require public reporting of hospital data on surgical site infections and, even when disclosure is mandated, the information is often not easily accessible to patients who could use it to make decisions about their medical care, according to new Johns Hopkins research. The research findings suggest that a haphazard, state-by-state system for reporting these critical measures of health care quality isn’t working and that only national guidelines governing disclosure can paint a clear picture of how well hospitals are doing at preventing patient harm, the researchers say. Reporting accurate data on measures such as rates of surgical site infections can be an inexpensive way to actually reduce them, the authors note in their study published online in the Journal for Healthcare Quality. When patients have access to this information and use it to take their business to hospitals with lower infection rates for select operations, the researchers say, hospitals with higher infection rates will have financial and reputational incentives to quickly find ways to do better. Read more …