The role of indicators in evaluating the effectiveness of health care
The role of indicators in evaluating the effectiveness of health care
The aim of this thesis is to determine the role of indicators in evaluating the effectiveness of health care and it attempts to answer the following questions. Are indicators a valid method to evaluate the effectiveness of health care? How can we make better use of indicators already available? How should we develop new indicators?
A literature review in chapter two describes why there has been an increasing use of health care indicators. It summarises and critiques the development of various sets of UK population and provider based indicators and highlights the constraints of using such indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of health care. Chapter three describes and critiques the development of one of these sets of population based health outcome indicators, published in 1993, reflecting effective health service interventions. Chapter four highlights the constraints of such indicators by examining the validity of two hip fracture indicators from this set. The next two chapters attempt to evaluate the use of indicators. Chapter five presents the results of a telephone questionnaire to determine the role of population based health outcome indicators in English health authorities, their constraints, and how they could have been made more useful. Chapter six examines a series of case studies on how English health authorities assess and improve health outcomes and summarises their lessons learnt, including the role of indicators in evaluating the effectiveness of health care.
The NHS requires an increased focus on health outcome and effectiveness. This thesis suggests that population based health outcome indicators, which have advantages over provider based ones, together with evidence-based process proxies for outcome do have a role in this. They can highlight potential variations in order to stimulate local investigations. Chapter seven proposes a method of developing evidence-based process indicators. Currently used indicators have little role in precisely measuring the effectiveness of health care and therefore limited role as performance management indicators.
University of Southampton
1998
McColl, Alastair James
(1998)
The role of indicators in evaluating the effectiveness of health care.
University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.
Record type:
Thesis
(Doctoral)
Abstract
The aim of this thesis is to determine the role of indicators in evaluating the effectiveness of health care and it attempts to answer the following questions. Are indicators a valid method to evaluate the effectiveness of health care? How can we make better use of indicators already available? How should we develop new indicators?
A literature review in chapter two describes why there has been an increasing use of health care indicators. It summarises and critiques the development of various sets of UK population and provider based indicators and highlights the constraints of using such indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of health care. Chapter three describes and critiques the development of one of these sets of population based health outcome indicators, published in 1993, reflecting effective health service interventions. Chapter four highlights the constraints of such indicators by examining the validity of two hip fracture indicators from this set. The next two chapters attempt to evaluate the use of indicators. Chapter five presents the results of a telephone questionnaire to determine the role of population based health outcome indicators in English health authorities, their constraints, and how they could have been made more useful. Chapter six examines a series of case studies on how English health authorities assess and improve health outcomes and summarises their lessons learnt, including the role of indicators in evaluating the effectiveness of health care.
The NHS requires an increased focus on health outcome and effectiveness. This thesis suggests that population based health outcome indicators, which have advantages over provider based ones, together with evidence-based process proxies for outcome do have a role in this. They can highlight potential variations in order to stimulate local investigations. Chapter seven proposes a method of developing evidence-based process indicators. Currently used indicators have little role in precisely measuring the effectiveness of health care and therefore limited role as performance management indicators.
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Published date: 1998
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Local EPrints ID: 463622
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/463622
PURE UUID: 8904a568-82ea-42b3-ab28-eb9fdef8ccfa
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Date deposited: 04 Jul 2022 20:54
Last modified: 04 Jul 2022 20:54
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Author:
Alastair James McColl
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