title: Measuring the quality of medical care: process versus outcome.
abstract: The controversy over appropriate and efficient ways to measure the quality of medical care continues. Many experts call for increased attention to assessment of the outcome of care. Others maintain that process measurements are more direct and practical. But both measurement techniques are of questionable validity, and each obscures important problems of the differences among patients, disease severity, and medical performance.
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006040:Goals; D006262:Health; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit; D009017:Morbidity; D009026:Mortality; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012107:Research Design; D014481:United States