Health care quality assurance

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Health care quality assurance is "activities and programs intended to assure or improve the quality of care in either a defined medical setting or a program. The concept includes the assessment or evaluation of the quality of care; identification of problems or shortcomings in the delivery of care; designing activities to overcome these deficiencies; and follow-up monitoring to ensure effectiveness of corrective steps."[1]

Health care quality assurance addresses topics such as medical error, cross infections, and evidence-based medicine.

Creating quality measures

Creating quality measures from clinical practice guidelines can be problematic.[2]

Measuring quality

Chart abstraction may underestimate quality.[3]

Improving quality

More experience, as measured by volume of care, is associated with better quality of care.[4]

Process control charts can be used to identify specific problems that need improvement.[5][6][7] Examples are assessing methods to obtain blood cultures[8], the impact of screening for methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus[9] and comparing mortality in surgical units[10].

Audit and feedback

Audit and feedback has been systematically reviewed by the Cochrane Collaboration who concluded its "effects are generally small to moderate."[11]

More recently, a factorial, cluster randomized controlled trial of audit and feedback concluded "enhanced feedback of requesting rates and brief educational reminder messages, alone and in combination, are effective strategies ."[12] The feedback in this trial was enhanced with an educational message.

Public reporting of quality measures

A systematic review found that "publicly releasing performance data stimulates quality improvement activity at the hospital level. The effect of public reporting on effectiveness, safety, and patient-centeredness remains uncertain".[13] However, a comparative study found concerns with the quality of data that is publically available.[14]

Research on quality improvement

Guidelines exist for the reporting of studies on quality improvement (http://www.squire-statement.org/).[15]

References

  1. ↑ Anonymous (2024), Health care quality assurance (English). Medical Subject Headings. U.S. National Library of Medicine.
  2. ↑ Walter LC, Davidowitz NP, Heineken PA, Covinsky KE (2004). "Pitfalls of converting practice guidelines into quality measures: lessons learned from a VA performance measure". JAMA 291 (20): 2466–70. DOI:10.1001/jama.291.20.2466. PMID 15161897. Research Blogging.
  3. ↑ How well does chart abstraction measure quality? A...[Am J Med. 2000 - PubMed Result]. Retrieved on 2008-02-12.
  4. ↑ Lin HC, Xirasagar S, Lin HC, Hwang YT (2008). "Does physicians' case volume impact inpatient care costs for pneumonia cases?". J Gen Intern Med 23 (3): 304-9. DOI:10.1007/s11606-007-0462-3. PMID 18043982. Research Blogging.
  5. ↑ Nelson EC, Splaine ME, Batalden PB, Plume SK (March 1998). "Building measurement and data collection into medical practice". Ann. Intern. Med. 128 (6): 460–6. PMID 9499330. [e]
  6. ↑ Lloyd, Robert M.; Carey, Raymond G. (1995). Measuring quality improvement in healthcare: a guide to statistical process control applications. White Plains, N.Y: Quality Resources. ISBN 0-527-76293-8. 
  7. ↑ Staker, Larry V.; Carey, Raymond G. (2002). Improving Healthcare with Control Charts: Basic and Advanced SPC Methods and Case Studies. Milwaukee, Wis: ASQ Quality Press. ISBN 0-87389-562-2. 
  8. ↑ Norberg A, Christopher NC, Ramundo ML, Bower JR, Berman SA (February 2003). "Contamination rates of blood cultures obtained by dedicated phlebotomy vs intravenous catheter". JAMA 289 (6): 726–9. PMID 12585951. [e]
  9. ↑ Harbarth S, Fankhauser C, Schrenzel J, et al (March 2008). "Universal screening for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus at hospital admission and nosocomial infection in surgical patients". JAMA 299 (10): 1149–57. DOI:10.1001/jama.299.10.1149. PMID 18334690. Research Blogging.
  10. ↑ Tekkis PP, McCulloch P, Steger AC, Benjamin IS, Poloniecki JD (April 2003). "Mortality control charts for comparing performance of surgical units: validation study using hospital mortality data". BMJ 326 (7393): 786–8. DOI:10.1136/bmj.326.7393.786. PMID 12689973. Research Blogging.
  11. ↑ Jamtvedt G, Young JM, Kristoffersen DT, O'Brien MA, Oxman AD (2006). "Audit and feedback: effects on professional practice and health care outcomes". Cochrane Database Syst Rev (2): CD000259. DOI:10.1002/14651858.CD000259.pub2. PMID 16625533. Research Blogging.
  12. ↑ Thomas RE, Croal BL, Ramsay C, Eccles M, Grimshaw J (June 2006). "Effect of enhanced feedback and brief educational reminder messages on laboratory test requesting in primary care: a cluster randomised trial". Lancet 367 (9527): 1990–6. DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68888-0. PMID 16782489. Research Blogging.
  13. ↑ Fung CH, Lim YW, Mattke S, Damberg C, Shekelle PG (2008). "Systematic review: the evidence that publishing patient care performance data improves quality of care". Ann. Intern. Med. 148 (2): 111–23. PMID 18195336. [e]
  14. ↑ Rothberg, Michael B.; Elizabeth Morsi, Evan M. Benjamin, Penelope S. Pekow, Peter K. Lindenauer (2008-11-01). "Choosing The Best Hospital: The Limitations Of Public Quality Reporting". Health Aff 27 (6): 1680-1687. DOI:10.1377/hlthaff.27.6.1680. Retrieved on 2008-11-10. Research Blogging.
  15. ↑ Davidoff, Frank; Paul Batalden, David Stevens, Greg Ogrinc, Susan Mooney, for the SQUIRE development group (2008-12-01). "Publication Guidelines for Quality Improvement Studies in Health Care: Evolution of the SQUIRE Project". Journal of General Internal Medicine 23 (12): 2125-2130. DOI:10.1007/s11606-008-0797-4. Retrieved on 2008-12-18. Research Blogging.

External links

Quality measures

Measuring quality improvement

Reporting studies of quality improvement

  1. ↑ Iglehart JK (1996). "The National Committee for Quality Assurance". N. Engl. J. Med. 335 (13): 995-9. PMID 8786789. [e]
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