The effect of a quality improvement initiative on the quality of other aspects of health care: the law of unintended consequences?
OBJECTIVE
Policymakers and clinicians are concerned that initiatives to improve the quality of care for some conditions may have unintended negative consequences for quality in other conditions.


OBJECTIVE
We sought to determine whether a practice redesign intervention that improved care for falls, incontinence, and cognitive impairment by an absolute 15% change also affected quality of care for masked conditions (conditions not targeted by the intervention).


METHODS
Controlled trial in 2 community medical groups, with 357 intervention and 287 control patients age 75 years or older who had difficulty with falls, incontinence, or cognitive impairment.


METHODS
Both intervention and control practices implemented case-finding for target conditions, but only intervention practices received a multicomponent practice-change intervention. Quality of care in the intervention practices improved for 2 of the target conditions (falls and incontinence).


METHODS
Percent of quality indicators satisfied for a set of 9 masked conditions measured by abstraction of medical records.


RESULTS
Before the intervention, the overall percent of masked indicators satisfied was 69% in the intervention group and 67% in the control group. During the intervention period, these percentages did not change, and there was no difference between intervention and control groups for the change in quality between the 2 periods (P=0.86). The intervention minus control difference-in-change for the percent of masked indicators satisfied was 0.2% (bootstrapped 95% confidence interval, -2.7% to 2.9%). Subgroup analyses by clinical condition and by type of care process performed by the clinician did not show consistent results favoring either the intervention or the control group.


CONCLUSIONS
A practice-based intervention that improved quality of care for targeted conditions by an absolute 15% change did not affect measurable aspects of care on a broad set of masked quality measures encompassing 9 other conditions.
Ganz
David A
DA
Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Health Care System, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90024, USA. dganz@mednet.ucla.edu
Wenger
Neil S
NS
Roth
Carol P
CP
Kamberg
Caren J
CJ
Chang
John T
JT
MacLean
Catherine H
CH
Young
Roy T
RT
Solomon
David H
DH
Higashi
Takahiro
T
Min
Lillian
L
Reuben
David B
DB
Shekelle
Paul G
PG
D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000639:trends*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014549:Urinary Incontinence / Q000453:epidemiology*