The California Hospital Assessment and Reporting Taskforce (CHART) was established in 2004 to develop a statewide hospital performance reporting system using a multi-stakeholder collaborative process. CHART brings together all the relevant stakeholders in California health care to:

  • Select key aspects of hospital performance to measure and report,
  • Achieve, consensus about a uniform, scientifically valid approach to measurement for all California hospitals,
  • Collect and aggregate the data as defined and specified,
  • Confirm the validity of the measurements made,
  • Provide hospitals and clinicians with valid measures and benchmarking data on which to base quality improvement efforts, and
  • Report the performance of individual California hospitals to consumers, purchasers, and health plans.

Reflecting the deep involvement of many stakeholder groups, the project has in kind and financial support from over 200 California hospitals and the Hospital Association of Southern California, the California Health Care Foundation, the Blue Shield of California Foundation, and many California health plans. All key project decisions are made by a Steering Committee consisting of representatives of consumers, purchasers, health plans, hospitals, physicians, nurses, and regulators. The project is directed by R. Adams Dudley, MD, MBA, Associate Professor of Medicine and Health Policy at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and coordinated by Arlyss Anderson Rothman, PhD, RN, FNP and Mitzi Dean, MS, MHA.