Pay for Performance: Improving Quality and Decreasing Costs in the Delivery of Healthcare

摘要

The pursuit of evidence-based practice is now at the core of the agenda for improving healthcare in the United States (U.S.) (Johnson & Maultsby, 2007; Nolan & Berwick, 2006). The presence of weak safety measures and few standardized protocols was less problematic when healthcare professionals had fewer medications, technologies, surgical therapies, and treatment modalities than are available today to treat even more acutely ill patients (Hwang & Herndon, 2007). Unmistakably, the arrival of new healthcare technologies, without corresponding updates in safety measures and outcomes measures, creates opportunities for error and sizeable healthcare cost reimbursements not reliant upon quality outcomes (Hwang & Herndon, 2007). The U.S. healthcare system fails to provide healthcare consistent with standards of care, unlike many other industries providing a service to the citizens of this nation (Cannon, 2006; Dudley, 2005; Epstein, 2006; Jacobson, 2001). The rate of system failures and healthcare errors is growing faster than the adoption of patient safety practices including information technology (Denham et al., 2005; Lindenauer, Remus, Roman, Rothberg, Benjamin, Ma & Bratzler, 2007).