Somewhat sensationalized1 claims are still made that there is a crisis in health care, with many patients needlessly dying due to medical errors.2 It is unlikely that medical care is as bad as is sometimes portrayed in the media, but because the prospect of poor-quality care and anecdotal reports of unacceptable patient outcomes receive so much public attention, there must be greater transparency and open discussion about the quality of health care delivery and how to improve it. Public discussion is dominated by statistically aggregated data and many quality improvement efforts relying on assessment of those data.