Public Agenda, Inc.

Variations in quality of health care can have serious and even life-threatening consequences for New York State residents.

Achieving greater transparency in health care quality can ensure that New Yorkers have information on health care quality that is public, accessible, usable, and actionable. Improving health care quality information and steering people toward higher-quality providers can prevent suffering and save money for consumers, providers, purchasers, and payers. Unfortunately, quality measurement and reporting systems have not been designed primarily for consumers. Many questions remain unanswered about New York State residents’ perceptions of quality, including how residents define good quality care, the extent to which people want information about the quality of doctors and hospitals, and their trust in potential sources of quality information. Addressing such questions will help advance NYHealth’s goal of empowering health care consumers. In 2015, NYHealth and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation co-funded a survey by Public Agenda on how people seek out and use health care price information. In 2018, NYHealth awarded Public Agenda another grant to conduct a survey on New York State residents’ interest, awareness, and preferences for accessing health care quality information.

Under this grant, Public Agenda conducted a demographically representative 16-minute survey of 800 adult residents in New York State. Data was collected through a combination of a phone survey and an online survey. Public Agenda prepared a report that established a baseline for residents’ interest in health care quality information, their awareness of quality variation, and their preferences for accessing this information. The survey provided NYHealth, the State, purchasers, payers, providers, consumer advocates, and other stakeholders insights into New Yorkers’ perspectives on quality and quality information, allowing transparency efforts to be guided by the needs and interests of the public.

Read the report on the survey’s findings.

On November 8, 2019, NYHealth and Public Agenda held a public release of the latest survey findings on how New Yorkers view health care quality, including a conversation with quality experts on what the State, providers, and payers can do to meet the information needs of consumers.