More Challenges in Measuring Care Quality

Excerpt

A wry observation sometimes attributed to Warren Buffett is that academics study what is measurable rather than what is meaningful. This was explored in depth recently in a series of articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education about improving metrics for faculty productivity, and may indeed be often true. However, most investigators working in the field of health care quality improvement strive to measure what is meaningful while overcoming the measurement challenges. They necessarily work to assure that the instruments and tools used for measurement are valid and provide the information that is needed to guide interventions. The complementary adage in the business world is that we can’t fix what we can’t measure. Without the tools to measure the outcomes we strive to achieve, we can’t adequately evaluate the success or failure of our efforts. This is undoubtedly true when designing interventions to improve healthcare delivery processes—without measures to assess outcomes, we can’t know if our interventions are effective. …