Improving Value in Health Care
Measuring Quality
Are breast cancer survival rates higher in the United States than in the United Kingdom
and France? Are a patient's chances of dying within 30 days after admission to a hospital
with a heart attack lower in Canada than in Korea? Are surgeons in some countries
more likely to leave “foreign bodies” behind after operations or make accidental punctures
or lacerations rates when performing surgery? The need for answers to these kinds
of questions and the value of measuring the quality of health care are among the issues
addressed in this publication.
Many health policies depend on our ability to measure the quality of care accurately.
Governments want to increase “patient-centeredness”, improve co-ordination of care,
and pay providers of high-quality care more than those who underperform. However,
measuring the quality of health care is challenging. The OECD’s Health Care Quality
Indicator project has overcome some of the problems, though many remain. If policy
makers are serious about improving the body of evidence on the quality of care, they
need to improve their health information systems. This publication describes what
international comparable quality measures are currently available and how to link
these measures to quality policies such as accreditation, practice guidelines, pay-for-performance,
national safety programmes and quality reporting.
Published on October 07, 2010Also available in: French, Korean
In series:OECD Health Policy Studiesview more titles