Are healthcare quality "report cards" reaching consumers? Awareness in the chronically ill population.

Background: Significant investments have been made to provide comparative healthcare quality information (CQI) to the public, but whether these efforts are increasing awareness of CQI is unknown.

Objectives: To provide regional estimates of change in awareness of CQI among the chronically ill population residing in 14 geographic regions of the United States between 2008 and 2012. Additionally, to examine its correlation with the changes in the availability of quality reports.