Management of Healthcare Processes Based on Measurement and Evaluation: Changing the Policy in an Italian Teaching Hospital

摘要

Clinical management and care outcome measures, which are now becoming mandatory in more and more countries, can influence the quality of care if they are relevant, evidence-based, carefully crafted and subjected to periodical quality review. Over a period of 13 years, a large Italian teaching hospital has used this framework to develop a performance measurement system, comprising a total of 768 internal and 67 external measures, with a view to improving service provision and accountability. The web-based performance measurement system does have a cost in terms of staffing and technological requirements, but the integration of the data it provides into the decision-making process can have a considerable impact on performance, and therefore quality of care.