BOX 8-2Making Information on Quality Accessible to Consumers

Although accessible information exists to support consumer purchasing for most goods and services, few comprehensive resources are available for comparing the quality of health care providers and hospitals. One effort aimed at expanding the amount of such information is the getbettermaine.org initiative, sponsored by the Maine Health Management Coalition in partnership with the Maine Quality Forum, Maine Quality Counts, the Maine Health Access Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The goal of this initiative is to provide patients and consumers with easily accessible information on care quality for various providers and hospitals in the state. Provider and hospital participation, which is voluntary, has been high, with all Maine hospitals and about 70 percent of the state's physicians participating. This information is being leveraged in the design of health insurance benefits through value-based insurance design. Insurance benefits for state employees provide lower deductibles and copays for the use of providers and care settings deemed of high quality by the initiative, which can encourage providers and hospitals to consider their care quality measures (Richardson, 2011).