Introduction

Report cards are referred to as public disclosure of the performance of health care providers (e.g., hospitals and physicians). This has been of increase since the early 1990s. In many states, these report cards rate providers on the performance of a particular procedure, most often reporting whether they had high, normal, or low risk adjusted mortality rates relative to the expected rates given the health characteristics of the patient population (Wang, J., et al., 2011).
According to Mukamel, (2008) “Quality report cards have become a major component of initiatives to enhance the quality of the American health care system and in addition to numerous private and state report cards, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) now provides web-based reports on the quality of health maintenance organizations (HMOs), nursing homes, home health agencies, hospitals, and renal dialysis clinics.” Quality report card report also has helped health care agencies and their professionals to strive to provide the highest quality, safest, most efficient, and cost-effective care possible including a drastic reduction in medical errors.
Health outcomes report cards are said to be one mechanism by which health care provider quality information is disseminated to the public. Health outcomes report cards usually provide information related to adverse health outcomes, such as mortality rates and complications rates, at the provider for a specific procedure or treatment of a specific disease such as heart disease report cards are the most well-established that is used to rate a provider. It is imperative to assert that the scarcity of scientific evidence on effectiveness of report cards does matter. Although, obtaining accurate scientific evidence into healthcare quality is difficult yet it is important to do so, since it will serve a great deal for healthcare