Theory and practice for measuring health care quality.

As competition, cost control, and new modes of delivery emerge in health care, there is a need to reexamine both the traditional definitions of health care quality and the methods by which it is measured. Industries other than health care have much to teach regarding the methods for obtaining, analyzing, and displaying data; techniques for problem identification, problem solving, and reassessment; and ideas about organizational factors that produce a high quality product or service. The Quality-of-Care Measurement Department at the Harvard Community Health Plan has built a program that draws from a distinguished health care quality assurance tradition and incorporates techniques that have been successful in other industries.