The law that created the Healthcare Professions Profile Program (HPPP) was championed by Patty Skolnik, a mother whose tragic loss of her only son led her to advocate for greater transparency and disclosure by healthcare providers and the improvement of patient/provider relationships.
Patty's son, Michael, died in 2004 after suffering complications from brain surgery. Later, she learned details about the physician's background that were concerning to her. It was Patty's belief that if she had been able to research the physician's background, she would have made different healthcare decisions for her son. Her legislative effort resulted in the passage of the Michael Skolnik Medical Transparency Act in 2007.
When the Michael Skolnik Medical Transparency Act was passed in 2007, the new profile requirement only applied to physicians and required physicians to complete online questionnaires or "profiles." The intent behind the law was to provide consumers in Colorado access to information about their physicians, providing them with resources to make more informed healthcare decisions. Because of the success of the program for physicians, the Colorado legislature has passed multiple expansions of the Act since 2010. Currently the profile requirement includes 54 license types and over 225,000 individual licensees.
Learn More
- For information regarding Michael Skolnik and the concept of informed consent, see The Michael Skolnik Story on YouTube. This video was produced for Transparent Health's series "The Faces of Medical Error: From Tears to Transparency."
- Watch the PSA (2010)