We will discuss key challenges in making valid comparisons among healthcare providers in terms of their quality of care including case mix differences, small sample sizes and data integrity issues. We will discuss methods and techniques for addressing such challenges. We will show how these methods and techniques can be applied in practice to produce more useful quality of care evaluations.

We will cover consumer report cards and value-based purchasing programs, both of which constitute important applications of the science of measuring and evaluating quality of care. Consumer report cards on quality of care frequently exist within publicly available websites. These websites provide consumers and other interested parties with quality-related information for comparing the performance of hospitals and physicians. Such resources and tools have been produced by government agencies, private health plans, and business organizations. We will look at several examples of these resources and tools and consider their value as well as their limitations.

We will discuss emerging developments pertaining to the science and practice of evaluating quality of care. This discussion will include the increased interest in value-oriented measures of provider performance (i.e., efficiency as well as quality) and in composite measures. Also, we will consider the debate over whether quality measures should be adjusted to account for differences among providers regarding the socio-economic characteristics of their patients and how such adjustments could be conducted.