Background: Little knowledge is available about the importance of hospital report cards in the US from the patients' perspective. It also remains unknown whether specific report cards with a stronger emphasis on clinical measures have a greater impact on hospital choice than general report cards that focus on online-derived ratings.
Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the awareness and usage of hospital report cards as well as their impact on hospital choice in the US.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study by surveying a stratified online sample (N = 1332) to ensure representativeness to the US online population (February 2015).
Results: Overall, 75% of all respondents (mean age 45.4 years; 54% female) were aware of hospital report cards. Among these, 56% had used a report card to search for a hospital, and 80% of report card users stated having been influenced by a report card. Both the awareness and usage of general report cards were shown to be higher than for specific report cards. No significant differences could be detected regarding the impact between general or specific report cards on hospital choice.
Conclusions: Our results indicate that hospital report cards play a considerable role among patients when searching for a hospital in the US; however, patients do not seem to have a preference regarding the type of report cards they use when selecting a hospital.