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Mant J. Process versus outcome indicators in the assessment of quality of health care. International Journal for Quality in Health Care. 2001;13(6):475.

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Theory /Hypothesis

Groups

Organisations - healthcare

Outcomes

In comparisons of performance between clinical services it is natural and entirely justified to pay most attention to outcomes such as mortality in heart disease. The problem with this however is that adverse outcome are relatively rare which means that very large numbers of cases must be collected before valid comparisons can be made. Also final outcomes are sensitive to other variables such as demographic and casemix severity. Comparisons of the processes of care, provided these are of evidence based efficacy, can be made much more quickly as they are or should be used in all cases thus giving larger numbers as denominators. They are also not subject to casemix and other environmental confounding factors.

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