A small, but growing, number of voices are asking whether increased transparency in government and the MUSH (Municipalities, Universities, Schools and Hospitals) sector could help improve efficiency and encourage better outcomes. As the attached article on hospitals discusses, there seems to be at the very least suggestive evidence that efforts to reduce medical errors offer could lead to significant improvements in medical outcomes in hospitals. A key barrier, however, is lack of transparency – both due to deliberate efforts to conceal information about human error, and insufficient efforts to design information systems to promote transparency. While one response to some of the anecdotes in the article is that they may be "Hawthorne" in nature, the article still raises questions that economic theory seems well equipped to address – namely, how to design incentives to both generate the revelation of information and to incentivize principles to act on it in the best interest of their clients.
See you at the FUBar.
