Quality Management in Health Care · 2002 · 82 citations · 0 references
Health ProfessionsHealth AdministrationHealth Services AdministrationHealthcare AccreditationHealthcare Quality ImprovementPerformance MeasurementHealth Care OutcomesHealth Care Performance MeasurementHealth Outcomes MeasurementHealthcare Performance MeasurementHospital Performance EvaluationOutcome MeasurementComparative Hospital PerformanceHealthcare Outcome MeasurementHealthcare Quality MeasurementHealthcare Service Performance MeasurementHospital Performance MetricsHospital Quality MeasurementOutcome MeasuresProcess Measures
Outcomes performance measures are increasingly important in health care. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (Joint Commission) continues to rely on structure and process measures based on accepted good practice. One of the first tasks in moving to a more outcomes-oriented approach is to compare the two measurement approaches. This article compares seven non-federal general hospital performance measures derived from Medicare against Joint Commission scores. Joint Commission measures are generally not correlated with outcome measures. The few significant correlations that appear are often counterintuitive. We conclude that a potentially serious disjuncture exists between the outcomes measures and Joint Commission evaluations.