Kaiser Permanente and Intermountain Healthcare will participate in the U.S. News & World Report Hospital Outcome Data Disclosure Program, a new initiative designed to better evaluate hospitals and give patients a thorough picture of the hospitals in their communities. The publication announced the initiative will collect data to assess healthcare providers more comprehensively and increase the scope of information available to patients. Under the program, hospitals and providers submit complete data to U.S. News rather than leaving the publication to rely on available Medicare data. "The choice of hospital can be a matter of life and death and it's also one of the most important and costly decisions an individual makes, yet data to help patients identify the right hospital for their needs are still limited," Ben Harder, chief of health analysis at U.S. News, said in the announcement. "The Hospital Outcome Data Disclosure Program will improve transparency and give patients a more complete picture of hospital performance." Announcement