CHA Withdraws Support for Hospital Quality Reporting Program
The California Hospital Association has backed away from supporting its California Hospitals and Assessment Reporting Task Force -- or CHART -- program that provides consumers with quality data submitted by hospitals, Payers & Providers reports.
Debby Rogers, CHA's vice president of quality and emergency services, said CHA's decision likely will compel member hospitals to withdraw from CHART.
About the Program
CHART was launched in 2004 to report on the quality of health care in California hospitals.
The program has been supported by every major hospital system, health plan and purchasing group in California, according to Payers & Providers. More than 240 facilities have submitted data on a variety of quality measures.
Consumers can access the data and analyses on the CalHospitalCompare website. Â
Details of CHA's Decision
CHA officials said that participating hospitals had been communicating with CHART for months about ways to improve the reporting process but that no agreement had been reached.
In addition, interviews with industry stakeholders suggested that hospitals had begun to express concern about collecting and submitting data for CHART at the same time that they were working to comply with quality reporting programs such as CMS' Hospital Compare initiative.
Next Steps
Bruce Spurlock, executive director of CHART, said that CHART's board will meet in mid-December to determine next steps.
The California HealthCare Foundation, which helped establish CHART, plans to participate in the December meeting. CHCF publishes California Healthline (Payers & Providers, 11/10).
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