OHA supports repealing data requirement

The Ohio Hospital Association is backing a proposal to repeal a five-year-old rule requiring hospitals to disclose their health care quality data on a state website (Source: “Hospitals back repeal of data rule,” Middletown Journal, Dec. 12, 2011).

The hospitals said that House Bill 353 would relieve them from the buden of providing data that is already being collected at the federal level.

“Hospitals simply reporting data to a state depository that is largely duplicative really doesn’t give us any value,” said Mary Yost, spokeswoman for the Ohio Hospital Association.

The OHA points out that most of the quality data on the state site (ohiohospitalcompare.ohio.gov) is also availble on a similar site run by HHS (hospitalcompare.hhs.gov).

However, opponents of repealing the bill say some data, such as data on infections acquired at surgical sites such as heart bypass surgery, C-sections and knee surgeries, is only available on the state site.

As part of its work to improve Ohio health system data transparency, HPIO has posted on its website a collection of state and national health care cost and quality data sources.