A recent study released by The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality suggests that tracking the quality of care encourages physicians to change the way they practice medicine. The study compared the care given to diabetic patients by physician practices that belong to the collaborative with the care given by physicians in Iowa and South Dakota as well as national performance measures. The study found that the collaborative’s members improved overall in every measure, such as monitoring a diabetes patient’s kidney function, which was tracked for more than two years. The group tracks more than 30 quality measures for physician practices.
The National Quality Forum has endorsed more than 500 standards for tracking health care quality and performance over the past decade. But significant gaps still exist, including measuring the accuracy of diagnoses, surgical success rates and the appropriateness of diagnostic tests and procedures. And in some cases, some measures may not result in better outcomes.
Read full study: Commonwealth Study Demonstrates “Public Reporting Matters”