Quality management in public and community health: examples from women's health.
Quality assessment and improvement activities are as relevant to the public health sector and community-based health care organizations as they are to the rest of the health care industry. This article provides a framework for the types of quality assessment and improvement approaches available to public health and community-based health care organizations and provides two examples drawn from the field of women's health. The first focuses on a population-based assessment of the performance of the health care system using indicators for the nation as a whole and for the states specifically in a women's health report card. The second focuses on measuring quality of care provided to clients of one type of safety-net organization, Title X family planning clinics. Either type of approach can serve as the basis for developing strategies for improving the performance of health care organizations.
Weisman
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Department of Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Grason
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HA
Strobino
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DS
D018672:Community Health Planning; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000592:standards*; D005193:Family Planning Services; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services; D015980:Public Health Practice / Q000592:standards*; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States; D014932:Women's Health Services / Q000592:standards*