Question

Discuss the importance of realistic expectations. What are outcome measures? List a few examples or methods a clinician could use to obtain outcome meaures.

Answer 1

Importance Of Realistic Expectations

Realistic Expectations helps us with the follows:

• Realistic expectations helps us become more flexible
• It helps in embracing the messy moments
• It helps us in getting clear on your values
• It helps in Evaluating our expectations
• It quiet’s our fear
• It helps in exploring our not-enough story
• It helps identify the most realistic takeaway

Outcome measure is also called effect measure or measure of effect. It is a measure within medical practice or research, which is used to assess the effect, both positive and negative, of an intervention or treatment. Measures can often be quantified using effect sizes.

Methods a clinician could use to obtain outcome measures:

Structural Measures

Structural measures give consumers a sense of a health care provider’s capacity, systems, and processes to provide high-quality care. For example:

• Whether the health care organization uses electronic medical records or medication order entry systems.
• The number or proportion of board-certified physicians.
• The ratio of providers to patients.

Process Measures

Process measures indicate what a provider does to maintain or improve health, either for healthy people or for those diagnosed with a health care condition. These measures typically reflect generally accepted recommendations for clinical practice. For example:

• The percentage of people receiving preventive services (such as mammograms or immunizations).
• The percentage of people with diabetes who had their blood sugar tested and controlled.

Process measures can inform consumers about medical care they may expect to receive for a given condition or disease, and can contribute toward improving health outcomes. The majority of health care quality measures used for public reporting are process measures.

Outcome Measures

Outcome measures reflect the impact of the health care service or intervention on the health status of patients. For example:

• The percentage of patients who died as a result of surgery (surgical mortality rates).
• The rate of surgical complications or hospital-acquired infections.

Outcome measures may seem to represent the “gold standard” in measuring quality, but an outcome is the result of numerous factors, many beyond providers’ control. Risk-adjustment methods—mathematical models that correct for differing characteristics within a population, such as patient health status—can help account for these factors. However, the science of risk adjustment is still evolving. Experts acknowledge that better risk-adjustment methods are needed to minimize the reporting of misleading or even inaccurate information about health care quality.