ROLE OF CONSUMER INFORMATION IN TODAYS HEALTH-CARE SYSTEM

This overview discusses articles published in this issue of the Health Care Financing Review, entitled ''Consumer Information in a Changing Health Care System.'' The overview describes several trends promoting more active consumer participation in health decisions and how consume r information facilitates that role. Major issues in developing consum er information are presented, stressing how orientation to consumer ne eds and use of social marketing techniques can yield improvement. The majority of the articles published in this issue of the Review discuss different aspects of information for choice of health plan, ranging f rom consumer perspectives on their information needs and their compreh ension of quality indicators, to methods used for providing such infor mation, such as direct counseling and comparative health plan performa nce data. The article concludes with thoughts on how we will know if w e succeed in developing effective consumer health information.