Benchmarking strategies for measuring the quality of healthcare: problems and prospects.

ScientificWorldJournal

CRISP and Department of Quantitative Methods, University of Bicocca-Milan, V. Sarca 202, 20146 Milan, Italy.

Published: October 2012

AI Article Synopsis

  • Increasing focus on healthcare quality measurement has led to improved benchmarking strategies for evaluating hospital effectiveness, which assesses how well institutions can enhance patient health.
  • The paper discusses the key debates surrounding benchmarking, emphasizing the varying perspectives and indicators used, and highlights methodological issues like statistical methods for case-mix control, data analysis, and outcome accuracy.
  • It addresses specific challenges in benchmarking, such as risk adjustment issues and selection bias, and concludes with a practical example of developing regional benchmarks for patient satisfaction based on data from the Lombardy Region.

Article Abstract

Over the last few years, increasing attention has been directed toward the problems inherent to measuring the quality of healthcare and implementing benchmarking strategies. Besides offering accreditation and certification processes, recent approaches measure the performance of healthcare institutions in order to evaluate their effectiveness, defined as the capacity to provide treatment that modifies and improves the patient's state of health. This paper, dealing with hospital effectiveness, focuses on research methods for effectiveness analyses within a strategy comparing different healthcare institutions. The paper, after having introduced readers to the principle debates on benchmarking strategies, which depend on the perspective and type of indicators used, focuses on the methodological problems related to performing consistent benchmarking analyses. Particularly, statistical methods suitable for controlling case-mix, analyzing aggregate data, rare events, and continuous outcomes measured with error are examined. Specific challenges of benchmarking strategies, such as the risk of risk adjustment (case-mix fallacy, underreporting, risk of comparing noncomparable hospitals), selection bias, and possible strategies for the development of consistent benchmarking analyses, are discussed. Finally, to demonstrate the feasibility of the illustrated benchmarking strategies, an application focused on determining regional benchmarks for patient satisfaction (using 2009 Lombardy Region Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire) is proposed.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3361319PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1100/2012/606154DOI Listing

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