title: Professional shopping of hospital services: an analysis of sub rosa investigative methods in determination of quality.
abstract: Using professional shopping, or sub rosa investigative methods, an actor was admitted to a hospital with a diagnosis of rule out myocardial infarction to ascertain quality data. An interesting finding was the interrelatedness of quality throughout the organization. The sub rosa investigator described many intraorganizational quality problems, including how the actions of one department affected quality in another. To evaluate the enormous amount of information provided by the investigator, the data were segregated by events that could be evaluated for quality. Only one event led to the conclusion that a new source of quality information was attributable to the sub rose investigator's findings. Hospitals using sub rosa investigative techniques may obtain large amounts of quality information in a relatively short period.
authors.affiliation: Infra-Structure Consultants, Visalia, California, USA.
authors.forename: A G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Komarek
mesh_terms: D006777:Hospitals, Proprietary / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D016544:Patient Simulation; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care