Len Nichols, PhD, Explains the Importance of Transparency in Healthcare

Len Nichols, PhD, director of the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics (CHPRE) and a professor of Health Policy at George Mason University, says that transparency in healthcare is an important concept.

“How can you know the value of what you’re buying if you don’t know what it costs, and you don’t what outcome you can expect from what you’re buying?,” he asks.

Dr Nichols says there are a variety of tools that are being developed and implemented to spread transparency. These include all-payer claim databases and registries that report on patient population outcomes. The information gathered from these tools can help stakeholders to compare costs for different treatment outcomes across different populations.