Classifying indicators of quality: a collaboration between Dutch and English regulators

Introduction. Many approaches to measuring quality in healthcare exist, generally employing indicators or metrics. While there are important differences, most of these approaches share three key areas of measurement: safety, effectiveness and patient experience. The European Partnership for Supervis...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal for quality in health care 2011-12, Vol.23 (6), p.637-644
Main Authors: MEARS, ALEX, VESSEUR, JAN, HAMBLIN, RICHARD, LONG, PAUL, OUDEN, LYA DEN
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advisory Committees
Care and treatment
Consensus
Cooperative Behavior
Data Collection - methods
England
Health policy
Hospitals
Medical service
Netherlands
Partnership
Patients
Pilot Projects
Quality Indicators, Health Care - classification
Quality of Health Care - standards
Risk management
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Request full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Introduction. Many approaches to measuring quality in healthcare exist, generally employing indicators or metrics. While there are important differences, most of these approaches share three key areas of measurement: safety, effectiveness and patient experience. The European Partnership for Supervisory Organisations in Health Services and Social Care (EPSO) exists as a working group and discussion forum for European regulators. This group undertook to identify a common framework within which European approaches to indicators could be compared. Approach. A framework was developed to classify indicators, using four sets of criteria: conceptualization of quality, Donabedian definition (structure, process, outcome), data type (derivable, collectable from routine sources, special collections, samples) and data use (judgement (singular or part of framework) benchmarking, risk assessment). Indicators from English and Dutch hospital measurement programmes were put into the framework, showing areas of agreement and levels of comparability. In the first instance, results are only illustrative. Conclusions and implications. The EPSO has been a powerful driver for undertaking cross-European research, and this project is the first of many to take advantage of the access to international expertize. It has shown that through development of a framework that deconstructs national indicators, commonalities can be identified. Future work will attempt to incorporate other nations' indicators, and attempt cross-national comparison.
ISSN:1353-4505
1464-3677
DOI:10.1093/intqhc/mzr055