Hospitals' Early Experience with the National Voluntary Hospital Reporting Initiative

The National Voluntary Hospital Reporting Initiative (NVHRI)—recently renamed the Hospital Quality Alliance: Improving Care Through Information—is a nationwide, collaborative effort to make the quality of hospital care more transparent to professionals and consumers. This report provides information on hospitals’ decisions to participate, their early experiences, and the initiative's influence on hospital quality improvement efforts. The authors conclude that the NVHRI has generated and maintained hospitals’ support because public reporting is viewed as “the right thing to do†and the NVRHI fits reasonably well with other quality initiatives in which hospitals participate. They also found signs that the NVHRI may, in concert with other initiatives, lead to better quality of care.