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Defining quality of care
- Source :
- Social Science & Medicine. 51:1611-1625
- Publication Year :
- 2000
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2000.
-
Abstract
- This paper defines quality of health care. We suggest that there are two principal dimensions of quality of care for individual patients; access and effectiveness. In essence, do users get the care they need, and is the care effective when they get it? Within effectiveness, we define two key components--effectiveness of clinical care and effectiveness of inter-personal care. These elements are discussed in terms of the structure of the health care system, processes of care, and outcomes resulting from care. The framework relates quality of care to individual patients and we suggest that quality of care is a concept that is at its most meaningful when applied to the individual user of health care. However, care for individuals must placed in the context of providing health care for populations which introduces additional notions of equity and efficiency. We show how this framework can be of practical value by applying the concepts to a set of quality indicators contained within the UK National Performance Assessment Framework and to a set of widely used indicators in the US (HEDIS). In so doing we emphasise the differences between US and UK measures of quality. Using a conceptual framework to describe the totality of quality of care shows which aspects of care any set of quality indicators actually includes and measures and, and which are not included.
- Subjects :
- medicine.medical_specialty
Health (social science)
Process management
MEDLINE
Community Health Planning
Health Services Accessibility
State Medicine
Patient satisfaction
History and Philosophy of Science
Nursing
Patient-Centered Care
Outcome Assessment, Health Care
Health care
medicine
Humans
Quality of care
Quality Indicators, Health Care
Quality of Health Care
Equity (economics)
business.industry
Public health
Process Assessment, Health Care
Models, Theoretical
Process of care
United Kingdom
United States
Treatment Outcome
Conceptual framework
Patient Satisfaction
business
Delivery of Health Care
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 02779536
- Volume :
- 51
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Social Science & Medicine
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....21d5a761543a08d30661d6b5ddf45f35