Healthcare quality indicators--a systematic review.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on quality model development, validation and limitations. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The systematic literature review used online journal indexes between January 1995 and April 2010. International studies focusing on multiple functional domains and those in which development methods were selected. Two reviewers assessed all studies and 18 were shortlisted. FINDINGS: Literature reviews, peer reviews, questionnaires and expert panels are the most frequently used model development methods. Expert judges were widely used to validate the models. The most important limitation was that key indicators were missing. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Existing healthcare quality models are not comprehensive and there is no consensus on targets, clinical areas or diseases.

Measuring health care process quality with software quality measures.

Existing quality models focus on some specific diseases, clinics or clinical areas. Although they contain structure, process, or output type measures, there is no model which measures quality of health care processes comprehensively. In addition, due to the not measured overall process quality, hospitals cannot compare quality of processes internally and externally. To bring a solution to above problems, a new model is developed from software quality measures. We have adopted the ISO/IEC 9126 software quality standard for health care processes. Then, JCIAS (Joint Commission International Accreditation Standards for Hospitals) measurable elements were added to model scope for unifying functional requirements. Assessment (diagnosing) process measurement results are provided in this paper. After the application, it was concluded that the model determines weak and strong aspects of the processes, gives a more detailed picture for the process quality, and provides quantifiable information to hospitals to compare their processes with multiple organizations.

Adopting software quality measures for healthcare processes.

In this study, we investigated the adoptability of software quality measures for healthcare process measurement. Quality measures of ISO/IEC 9126 are redefined from a process perspective to build a generic healthcare process quality measurement model. Case study research method is used, and the model is applied to a public hospital's Entry to Care process. After the application, weak and strong aspects of the process can be easily observed. Access audibility, fault removal, completeness of documentation, and machine utilization are weak aspects and these aspects are the candidates for process improvement. On the other hand, functional completeness, fault ratio, input validity checking, response time, and throughput time are the strong aspects of the process.

Measuring healthcare process quality: applications in public hospitals in Turkey.

Process improvement activities are becoming an essential part of a number of healthcare organizations. As the popularity of process improvement grows, the need for common objective measures is becoming more critical. Numerous quality measures have been suggested to evaluate healthcare quality. However, applications utilizing the existing quality measures mostly focus on the quality of specific diseases, clinics or clinical areas. Although these measures or measurement sets contain structure, process or output type measures, they do not provide a comprehensive approach that can cover all healthcare processes. The need for a comprehensive measurement was the motivation for us to develop the Healthcare Process Quality Measurement Model (HPQMM) presented in this paper. The model is applied to the laboratory and assessment processes in three public hospitals. The applications enabled the hospitals to measure their processes objectively, identify their weaknesses and strengths, and compare their processes with other hospitals. In this paper, we describe the application of HPQMM in three public hospitals and present a discussion of the results.