The New England Journal of Medicine has a fun little post examining measures for performance improvement. As you may or may not know, doctors are notoriously bad at following guidelines or understanding evidence. Many patients wander through the healthcare system getting too much of the wrong care and sometimes not enough of what they need. (Hence the RightCare Alliance, which tries to find the “just right” sort of balance.) The understandable inclination of hospitals, insurance companies, the government, and anyone else who pays for care is to press for performance improvement or quality improvement, mostly by measuring certain standards (e.g. whether or not patients are getting to a specific blood pressure) and then using data (often acquired through the EMRs that are like texting while driving) to determine whether or not certain targets are being met. Sounds like a great idea!
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