Bowing to intense public pressure, the Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA) has dropped its opposition to reporting hospital-specific errors. Last month, WSHA had pressured the state to stop publicly disclosing error reports from hospitals--and the state had responded, changing its reports to share only aggregate data on 28 reportable adverse events. However, a wave of bad PR hit the hospitals when its lobbying efforts were disclosed, with newspapers and television stations around the state reporting unfavorably on its actions. Now, WSHA has changed its position, announcing that it wouldn't fight legislative efforts to require public disclosure of hospital-specific data. It's now pushing to add "context" to the data, such as including not only surgical error rates but the volume of surgery as well.
To learn more about this story:
- read this Modern Healthcare article
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