title: Benchmarking to improve the quality of cystic fibrosis care.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Benchmarking involves the ascertainment of healthcare programs with most favorable outcomes as a means to identify and spread effective strategies for delivery of care. The recent interest in the development of patient registries for patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) has been fueled in part by an interest in using them to facilitate benchmarking. This review summarizes reports of how benchmarking has been operationalized in attempts to improve CF care.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Although certain goals of benchmarking can be accomplished with an exclusive focus on registry data analysis, benchmarking programs in Germany and the United States have supplemented these data analyses with exploratory interactions and discussions to better understand successful approaches to care and encourage their spread throughout the care network.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Benchmarking allows the discovery and facilitates the spread of effective approaches to care. It provides a pragmatic alternative to traditional research methods such as randomized controlled trials, providing insights into methods that optimize delivery of care and allowing judgments about the relative effectiveness of different therapeutic approaches.
authors.affiliation: Emory University School of Medicine, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. msschec@emory.edu
authors.forename: Michael S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Schechter
mesh_terms: D019985:Benchmarking / Q000379:methods*; D003550:Cystic Fibrosis / Q000628:therapy*; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D058996:Quality Improvement; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012042:Registries; D014481:United States