ABSTRACT
Major currents of health communication research look to the infl uence of physician-patient communication on health care outcomes, how features of health care shape physician-patient communication, and the way that health risk and programs are communicated to the public through media (see Haskard, Summer, & DiMatteo, this volume; also Thompson, Dorsey, Miller, & Parrott, 2003). Yet, despite its impressive accomplishments over the past 40 years (Parrott, 2004, also this volume), even a brief review of the burgeoning body of research on health communication seems to point to a gap and an opportunity. Although issues of change and innovation are not foreign to its research foci (e.g., telemedicine, Turner, 2003), it seems that little work directly addresses a major shift that has accompanied the health care reforms of the late 20th and early 21st century, specifi cally the large-scale collection and use of outcomes data designed to improve the quality of care. That is, pushed by concerns about escalating costs, increasing reports about health disparities, and the entry of new, managed forms of care, there has been a move toward accountability in medicine requiring data on the effects of care, be they reports of patient satisfaction, an assessment of costs, evaluations of whether procedural guidelines were followed, or tracking the impact of the provision of medical care. By any measure, outcomes data have become a major element of 21-century medicine shaping issues of access to health care, the medical encounter between “providers” and “consumers,” and health policy initiatives, including the organization and fi nancing of care.
