Quality of care for kids
Previous Features »Quality of care for kids
Quality of Care for Specific Medical Conditions
Click graph for larger image.
SOURCE: Mangione-Smith R, DeCristofaro AH, Setodji CM, et al. The Quality of Ambulatory Care Delivered to Children in the United States. The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 357, No. 15, Oct 11 2007, pp. 1515-1523. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/357/15/1515
In the first national report card on quality of care, the US health care system got poor marks. On average, adults got recommended care about half the time.
But the same study showed that care for children is even worse. On average, children receive only 47% of recommended care. Quality varied widely by type of care, ranging from 67% for acute medical problems such as fever and 53% for chronic conditions such as asthma to 41% for preventive care such as screening for Chlamydia.
Management of chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, in part increasing among children because of the obesity epidemic, is critical — both to keep children healthy and to avoid high health care costs in adulthood.
RAND® is a registered trademark. Copyright © 1994-2012 RAND Corporation.