[The assessment process and variability in the conferences of Spanish Society of Quality in Healthcare].
OBJECTIVE
To describe the abstracts assessment process in the 2011 Conference of the Spanish Society for Quality in Health Care, focusing on the procedures adopted to control the interobserver variability.


METHODS
Process described using the IDEF0 model. An interventional blinded study is designed to know and control the interobserver variability of the 27 Conference appraisers, who scored 5 submitted abstracts using 4 explicit criteria. The sum of these scores is used to estimate the variability. The variability ratio (VR) of every appraiser is obtained dividing the average score by his total score, and used to control the variability adjusting the gross score of every abstract.


RESULTS
Process mission: "to assess the abstracts submitted to Conference in an easy, open and fair way". Attendants to the conference, abstract authors and the Society have been identified as clients, their needs and explored expectations. Variability scores: maximum 170, minimum 37, average 115.4. Coefficients: variation 23%, asymmetry -.7, kurtosis 2.1. VR: maximum 3.12, minimum .68.


CONCLUSIONS
IDEF0 diagrams could be useful to improve the evaluation process and facilitate the work of future scientific committees. The appraisers' variability was too important to be omitted. VR is an easy to get and simple to use tool that produces adjusted scores to control this.
Área I Murcia-Oeste, Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Arrixaca, Murcia, España. julioj.lopez-picazo@carm.es
J J
JJ
López-Picazo Ferrer
M
M
Alcaraz Quiñonero
D003226:Congresses as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D015588:Observer Variation; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D013030:Spain