Does meeting quality measures really improve patient outcomes?
That’s a critical question, since current pay-for-performance initiatives assume the answer is yes. For instance, does a higher percentage of hemoglobin A1c’s in diabetics really mean better patient outcomes?
Internist Robert Centor suggests otherwise, saying that there is very little data connecting the two. Extrapolating patients from studies to the real world is difficult, “as patients suffer more diseases, interpreting a performance measure on one disease must become more complex.”
Every reform plan wants to link payment to health outcomes. The problem is, the tools that are currently available are far too blunt to accurately achieve this goal.
topics: performance, centor
