Gutsiness on Health Care

Committees of doctors have for years examined records of hospitals and physician groups and graded them for the quality of their work. But until now even the peer reviews conducted for the federal government under various programs have been for internal use only.

Now Margaret M. Heckler, secretary of health and human services, has ruled that the information developed by 54 new organizations that are gathering information on health services under Medicare will be available to the general public. It was a welcome and gutsy decision, made despite opposition from the medical profession.

There will remain a certain amount of red tape. People shopping for medical care will write to Washington and be directed to a peer-review group in their area. Information will be slow in coming, because hospitals will have 30 days in which to comment on a review of their operations.

Still, once the system shakes down, consumers can get information on the success records of hospitals and physician groups for different surgical procedures. They can learn which hospitals have the best records as to such things as post-operative infections, and which the worst. The service also will identify hospitals with the largest numbers of patients, and therefore the most experience, with any given kind of surgery, and will furnish cost comparisons.

The information service is designed for individuals, but corporations, unions and other institutions that underwrite the cost of health care already are lining up to gather the information and use it to guide members and employees to hospitals with the best records on quality of care and cost.

For potential patients who don’t want to wait for information to filter through an organization, the address for queries is Al Lazar, Health Care Financing Administration, Health Standards Quality Bureau, Oak Meadows Building, 6340 Security Blvd., Baltimore, Md. 21207.

At a time when the government seems more often interested in limiting information than in spreading it around, it is refreshing to see Heckler bucking the trend--and in a way that is potentially so useful to the very people who most need it.