Pennsylvania requires various types of medical facilities within the state to collect and quality information to relevant public agencies.  For instance, hospital outpatient services must collect, retrieve and summarize data for an effective evaluation of the services it delivers, including number of visits, number of patients seen, age distribution of patients, clinical diagnoses and types and numbers of operative procedures performed on an outpatient basis.1  Ambulatory surgical facilities too must have a written plan for a quality assurance and improvement program that collects information from medical records, incident reports, infection control reports and patient complaints.2  Hospitals must also collect quality data relating to certain procedures performed within the facility, including for open heart surgeries3 and cardiac catheterization services.4  Regardless of type, all health care facilities must develop and implement an internal infection control plan to improve the health and safety or patients and workers.5

        Additionally, Pennsylvania, through the Health Care Cost Containment Act, requires providers to submit data and records to the Health Care Cost Containment Council to assist it in preparing reports on provider quality and service effectiveness, as well as patient safety and opportunities for cost reduction.6

        With respect to managed care organizations, Pennsylvania requires each to have an ongoing quality assurance programs that includes review, analysis and assessment of the access, availability and provision of health care services.7  Each organization must document all quality assurance activities, include consideration of clinical aspects of care, access, availability and continuity of care in the review of quality, and provide mechanisms for the sharing of quality results with health care providers in an educational format.[8]