Specialty Societies and Health Care Purchasers Discuss a New Approach to QualityImprovement. Conference, Abstract, Executive Summary and Final Report

摘要

There is a huge gap between the quality of average medical care in this countryand the quality of the best care that we know is possible and indeed available from certain providers. This failure of the health care system to consistently do as well as it could is pervasive, and the 'consumer choice' model is limited and indirect in its ability to address this issue. This paper describes an approach that affects quality more directly by proposing the creation of externally accountable quality improvement programs that would be collaborations between purchasers and providers. The ultimate objective of such programs would be on-going assessment by physicians of the relationship between process and outcomes in an environment that encourages changes in practice to improve outcomes.