Value and choice: providing consumers with information on the quality of health care. Conference overview.

BACKGROUND: The burgeoning topic of information for consumers on the quality of health care raises several questions: What kinds of information about quality of care do Americans want and use? How do consumers use information about quality to choose a health plan, hospital, or physician for themselves and their families? To whom do consumers turn for this information? How would we know if we have provided Americans the "right" information? To answer these questions, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services convened a national conference, "Value and Choice: Providing Consumers with Information on the Quality of Health Care," in Arlington, Virginia, October 29-30, 1996. ISSUES AND PARTICIPANTS: The overview summarizes the central questions and themes emerging from commissioned papers, presentations, and group discussion of work in progress in a field in the midst of intense development. Groups and interests represented by the presenters and participants included academic researchers, consumer advocates, librarians, information technologists, health care administrators, and agency and foundation officials. Four articles following the overview focus on results of a national consumer survey, definition of the total customer relationship, emerging "self-helpers" on the Internet, and the risks, benefits, and ultimate measures of success in the movement to provide consumers with information on health care quality. FUTURE DIRECTIONS: The matter of what consumers need to know, in contrast to what they receive or use now, raised the issue of multiple purposes and the need for a consensus development of a strategy.