State-sponsored public reporting of hospital quality: results are hard to find and lack uniformity.

The prevalence of state public reporting initiatives that focus on hospital quality is not known. We systematically reviewed state-sponsored public reporting programs that focused on clinical aspects of hospital quality and performance for adults, by surveying the fifty US states and the District of Columbia. We found that although identifying information about programs was frequently a challenge, twenty-five states had programs that reported about hospital quality. Information varied considerably from state to state, by health condition and by process and outcome measures reported. We examine the implications of these findings for future state initiatives.