The Colorado Hospital Report Card has the primary purpose of ensuring that statewide hospital data and clinical outcomes are made available to the general public in a clear and usable manner. The Colorado Hospital Report Card will utilize standardized quality and clinical outcome measures that are endorsed by national organizations, with established standards to measure the performance of healthcare providers and hospitals.

A key objective of the Colorado Hospital Report Card is to uphold a statewide commitment to hospital quality improvement, accountability and transparency. Although the long term goal of the report card is for it to be inclusive of measures that are applicable to all demographics and diverse communities, there are some measures that may not be appropriate to use for direct comparison of some hospitals given the nature of the patient population, size of hospital or frequency and number of procedures. Appropriate consideration for applicable measures will be given to all types of hospitals throughout the state to ensure a process of accountability for hospital practices, and development of quality improvement initiatives for best delivery of healthcare in Colorado.