Abstract
The concern for quality of health care motivates evaluation programs designed to monitor the health care system, patient outcome, and provider expertise. An array of audit methods and instrumentsfor evaluatingprofessional and institutionalperformance has been developed. Although evaluation is viewed by many asthe basisforaccountability and improvement of health care, few are aware that most existingevaluation programs are really data-collecting systems. Very little, if any, analysis of the data is done with the objective of optimizing the system. The "sampling with intervention "procedures often used to monitor the health care delivery system are primarily directed toward the individual patient while the system and provider continue to operate in the established mode. This article outlines analytic proceduresfor interpreting evaluation data generated by quality control and audit systems. Five common univariate statistical quality control charts are described.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.