Health Care Quality Measurement

RESEARCH BRIEF

Helping Hospitals Deliver Better Care: A New Toolkit for Quality Improvement — May 25, 2012

A team from RAND and the University HealthSystem Consortium developed a toolkit to help hospitals enhance their quality improvement efforts using quality indicators from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

• Research Brief

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Patient Experience of Care in the Safety Net: Current Efforts and Challenges — Apr 1, 2012

Tailored measurement and quality improvement resources, coupled with policy mandates to give all patients a voice, would improve the quality of patient-centered care in safety-net organizations.

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JOURNAL ARTICLE

Consumers' and Providers' Responses to Public Cost Reports, and How to Raise the Likelihood of Achieving Desired Results — Apr 1, 2012

Public reporting of health care costs is intended to motivate consumers to choose lower cost providers, and motivate providers to lower costs to retain market share. Measures should be chosen based on which pathway policymakers intend to influence.

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COMMENTARY

Using Patient Surveys to Rate Hospitals — Mar 22, 2012

Hospitals that perform better on the survey tend to do better on clinical measures, have fewer readmissions within 30 days and have lower risk-adjusted mortality, write Marc Elliott and Alan Zaslavsky.

• Commentary

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Ways to Improve Health Care Provider 'Report Cards' — Mar 5, 2012

As health care reform expands the use of "report cards" to grade health care providers, greater attention to reporting methods may be needed to assure the quality of such efforts.

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• News Release

NEWS RELEASE

Ways to Improve Health Care Provider 'Report Cards' — Mar 5, 2012

As health care reform expands the use of "report cards" to grade health care providers, greater attention to reporting methods may be needed to assure the quality of such efforts.

• News Release

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Rasch Analysis in the Development of a Simplified Version of the National Eye Institute Visual-Function Questionnaire-25 for Utility Estimation — Mar 1, 2012

This study developed a vision-targeted health state classification system based on the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire-25 (NEI VFQ-25).

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JOURNAL ARTICLE

Applying a Natural Language Processing Tool to Electronic Health Records to Assess Performance on Colonoscopy Quality Measures — Jan 1, 2012

Natural language processing programs can "read" dictated reports and measure colonoscopy quality in an inexpensive, automated, and efficient manner.

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PROJECT

Assessing Quality of Care for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome — Dec 2, 2011

By measuring the quality of care for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) in a large workers' compensation provider organization in California and assessing value to workers and employers, RAND laid the groundwork for ongoing quality assessment and improvement programs in workers' compensation settings within California and elsewhere.

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JOURNAL ARTICLE

Variations in Amenable Mortality-Trends in 16 High-Income Nations — Nov 1, 2011

This study examines trends in amenable mortality, as one measure of health system performance, in sixteen high-income countries.

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JOURNAL ARTICLE

Quality of Care Provided in a Special Needs Plan Using a Nurse Care Manager Model — Oct 1, 2011

Vulnerable older adults enrolled in plans that use nurse care managers receive, on average, 69% of recommended care for geriatric conditions, compared with 53% for elders in plans without nurse care managers.

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JOURNAL ARTICLE

Methodological Considerations in Generating Provider Performance Scores for Use in Public Reporting: A Guide for Community Quality Collaboratives — Sep 1, 2011

This white paper prepared for the Agency on Healthcare Research and Quality examines methodological issues raised by the generation of public-reporting of scores for measuring health care provider performance.

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REPORT

How Do Quality Improvement Interventions Succeed? Archetypes of Success and Failure — Aug 29, 2011

The goal of this analysis was to ascertain the predominant themes and patterns likely to be associated with producing successful health care quality improvement interventions (QIIs).

• Full Document

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Does Better Quality of Care for Falls and Urinary Incontinence Result in Better Participant-Reported Outcomes? — Aug 1, 2011

Better quality of care for falls and urinary incontinence was associated with measurable improvement in participant-reported outcomes in less than 1 year.

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JOURNAL ARTICLE

Empirical Evidence of Associations Between Trial Quality and Effect Size — Jun 1, 2011

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JOURNAL ARTICLE

Preventing Pressure Ulcers in Hospitals: A Systematic Review of Nurse-Focused Quality Improvement Interventions — Jun 1, 2011

This article describes results of a systematic literature review focused on which interventions can be integrated into routine care to prevent pressure ulcers.

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JOURNAL ARTICLE

Quality of End-of-Life Care for Patients with Advanced Cancer in an Academic Medical Center — Apr 1, 2011

Cancer Quality-ASSIST indicators are useful for practical quality assessment of cancer end-of-life care in an academic medical center.

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JOURNAL ARTICLE

Selecting Performance Indicators for Prison Health Care — Apr 1, 2011

Prison health institutions, like all other large health institutions, need robust measurement systems. The indicators presented in this article provide a basic library for prison health managers developing such systems.

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REPORT

Paying for Quality in the German Healthcare System — Mar 22, 2011

Germany's National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians is looking to develop a unified reimbursement framework that accounts for regional prices and incorporates quality indicators. Research by RAND Europe has informed the development of the quality component of the proposed framework.

• Full Document
• Health and Health Care Research Area

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Percentile-based Empirical Distribution Function Estimates for Performance Evaluation of Healthcare Providers — Mar 18, 2011

Given the high stakes of performance evaluations, statistical benchmarks used in constructed physician profiles should be accompanied by estimates of the benchmarks’ precious.

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