Question

How can quality of care be measured from a patient's perspective? A health care provider's perspective? A purchaser's perspective?

Answer 1

There are various tools used to measure the quality of healthcare from various perspectives like patient, purchaser and hospital. Quality measurement tools help to access or quantify healthcare structure, processes and outcomes. The use of Structure- process- outcome or Donabedian model is perfect to access the quality of healthcare system.

Patients perspective of healthcare quality can be accessed different methods like the quality index of different disease management aspect, a mixed?mode survey using a structured questionnaire on patients’ experiences, Comparing proxy?reports, appraisal of patients experience with specific provider behaviors and their ratings of care. Patients are concerned about different aspects of healthcare system like the infrastructure of the hospital, availability of resources, delivery of care, and the quality of care provided and the result of care.

Quality standards will also be measured from care provider’s perspectives. They will monitor whether standardized care is provided to achieve the desired outcome. Measuring of quality can be done by questionnaires, surveys, auditing, employee turnover rates etc. The employee satisfaction is the main aspect of every system. The adequacy of the well trained and efficient staffs is very important in the proper functioning of the organization. The healthcare provider will assess the self and coworkers standards of practice.

The purchaser perspective of quality of care involves the financial aspects. That could include the cost of healthcare, availability of high-quality care, price standards and incentives. The comparison of various systems will be done by the purchaser to evaluate the place in which the best quality care is provided.