Understanding the relationship between health care quality and the renal mass.
Quality is increasingly important to all stakeholders of the U.S. health care system. Endeavors to measure and improve quality have moved forward in cardiovascular disease, diabetes care, and surgical wound infections. However, in urology, such efforts have lagged. As a specialty, we are now faced with pressures, exerted primarily by payors, to roll out performance measures, or quality indicators, in the absence of science to support them. In this review, we discuss the broad concepts of health care quality and describe their relationships with small renal tumors.
Strope
Seth A
SA
Department of Urology, Divisions of Oncology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Wolf
J Stuart
JS
Hafez
Khaled S
KS
Dunn
Rodney L
RL
Hollingsworth
John M
JM
Gilbert
Scott M
SM
Hollenbeck
Brent K
BK
D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D007680:Kidney Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D010535:Laparoscopy / Q000379:methods; D008495:Medical Oncology / Q000379:methods*; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009399:Nephrons / Q000473:pathology; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care