Cover: A Fair Approach to Comparing Quality of Care

A Fair Approach to Comparing Quality of Care

Published in: Health Affairs, v. 10, no. 1, Spring 1991, p. 62-75

Posted on RAND.org on January 01, 1991

by Albert L. Siu, Elizabeth A. McGlynn, Hal Morgenstern, Robert H. Brook

In 1988, twelve health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and group of southern California researchers formed the HMO Quality of Care Consortium to examine quality of care in various health plans. Currently, while individual plans may possess extensive information on various aspects of quality, it is difficult to compare information from one plan to that of another. Nearly three years into the project, eleven of the HMOs are still active consortium members. In this article, the authors discuss policy implications of technical problems in the measurement and public release of data on quality of care beyond the release of hospital mortality data.

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