Leapfrog to CMS: Show Us the Data

The Leapfrog Group, an employer coalition advocating increased health care quality and safety, joined many other organizations in applauding the Obama administration's new $1 billion Partnership for Patients safety program (see story).

"We agree with the administration on the need for a common national yardstick for measuring patient safety, and on the need for educating and engaging consumers so they can protect themselves and their families," Leapfrog said in a statement.

Unlike other groups, however, Leapfrog went beyond the platitudes and challenged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to pony up data as well as money.

"In the interest of accelerating public discourse, transparency and progress, Leapfrog calls on CMS to make Medicare and Medicaid data available and easily accessible to the public to permit a range of analysis in our public discussion of hospital performance," according to the statement. "Of course, data should protect patient identity, but include a complete census of hospital and physician data to permit comparison among these different providers."

--Joseph Goedert