Public Report Cards for Doctors and Hospitals: A Cure for the Ailing Healthcare System?
Ashish Jha, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, Harvard Medical School
We Americans spend 2.1 trillion dollars on healthcare each year, and what we get in return is uneven, often mediocre quality care. Policy makers have increasingly turned to "public report cards" where doctors and hospitals are graded on the quality of care they provide and this information is made available in the public sphere. Will this effort towards transparency transform the U.S. healthcare system? What does the empirical evidence tell us about the impact? What effect might greater transparency have on care in other nations? Ashish Jha, a practicing physician and a professor at the School of Public Health will share both the empirical evidence and the anecdotal stories driving the push for greater information and openness of the American healthcare system.
About Ashish
Ashish K. Jha, M.D., M.P.H. is an Assistant Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Staff Physician at VA Boston Healthcare System and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Dr. Jha received his M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School in 1997 and trained in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco where he also served as chief resident. He completed his General Medicine fellowship training from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and received his M.P.H. training in Clinical Effectiveness from Harvard School of Public Health in 2004. He joined the faculty in July, 2004.
Dr. Jha’s main professional interests are in quality of care, disparities in care, and the impact of information technology in these areas. He has worked in areas evaluating the quality of hospital care, especially hospitals that care for large minority populations; the impact of health IT and public reporting on quality and disparities in care; and, delineating the relationship between hospital quality and efficiency. Much of his current work focuses on the current state of HIT use in the U.S. and the impact it has on the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare.