# 2 A COMPARISON OF HOSPITAL SURVEYERS (sic) IN NEW YORK STATE

WINTER 1974

This Quarterly compared the JCAH to the agencies of New York State and New York City. It revealed the transfer of authority away from the City to the State for the surveys of proprietary hospitals in the City and during the same period the transfer of authority by the State to the JCAH for all hospitals. Two (2) tables are included. The first compares selected survey characteristics of the Health Departments and JCAH and the second includes excerpts of the findings by the City, the State and JCAH at three different hospitals. All this latter information was previously private and confidential and now revealed by CCAHS.

The justification for disclosure of deficiencies was that because almost 90% of the income of hospitals came from Medicare, Medicaid and Blue Cross (which also had use of significant public monies) the surveys and accreditations findings should be made public. Secondarily, federal and state laws and regulations mandated that public agencies ensure the health and safety of the public by conducting surveys. Non-disclosure by the hospitals, JCAH and the responsible government agencies was wrong, illegal and created a false sense that all was well at hospitals.

Disclosure now referred to as transparency is a hot button in this century. Efforts to reveal measurement of quality, conflicts and efficacy of payments were resisted and only indirectly and inconsistently successful. Based on public and payer outcries and as a matter of good taste and public relations, transparency is now advocated and accepted even when not legally required by many recent state laws as well as in the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA). But disclosure made voluntarily can be honest or scripted. Transparency unfortunately has become another tool to convince individual consumers and a vulnerable public to not demand full disclosure as a matter of law. Despite calls for transparency and the appearance of doing so, disclosure became nothing more than a public relations tool to market a product or service and to forestall any legal requirements.