An Analysis of Quality Assessment Efforts in Health Care

The purpose of this research was to determine whether consensus could be reached by experts in the field of quality assurance on the most important indicators of health care quality and to determine whether cause and effect relationship could be attributed to the process and outcome indicators suggested in our survey. We invited participation by a representative sample of experts in a Delphi Panel to address these issues. There were 49 respondants to our Round One Questionnaire and they evaluated the relative importance of 50 process and 50 outcome indicators. Panelists were asked to establish cause and effect relationships between the process and outcome indicators where possible on Round Two. The coefficient of correlation was utilized to test the null hypothesis that the relationship between the process: outcome mean score ratios and the process: outcome cause and effect ratios was not statistically significant at the .01 level. The null hypothesis was rejected and the researchers determined that the relationship between the indicator mean ratios and the cause and effect ratios was statistically significant. It was concluded that indicators high in context and specificity are more useful and important in the measurement of health care quality