title: Reporting and use of the OECD Health Care Quality Indicators at national and regional level in 15 countries.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  OECD member states are involved since 2003 in a project coordinated by the OECD on Health Care Quality Indicators (HCQI). All OECD countries are biennially requested by the OECD to deliver national data on the quality indicators for international benchmarking purposes.
  
  
  METHODS
  Currently, there is no knowledge whether the OECD HCQI information is used by the countries themselves for healthcare system accountability and improvement purposes.
  
  
  METHODS
  The objective of the study is to explore the reporting and use of OECD HCQI in OECD member-states.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data were collected through a questionnaire sent to all OECD member-states containing factual questions on the reporting on all OECD HCQ-indicators. Responses were received between June and December 2014. In this timeframe, two reminders were sent to the participants. The work progress was presented during HCQI Meetings in November 2014 and May 2015.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Fifteen countries reported to have a total of 163 reports in which one or more HCQIs were reported. One hundred and sixteen were national and 47 were regional reports. Forty-nine reports had a general system focus, 80 were disease specific, 10 referred to a specific type of care setting, 22 were thematic and 2 were a combination of two (disease specific for a particular type of care and thematic for a specific type of care). Most reports were from Canada: 49. All 15 countries use one or more OECD indicators.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The OECD quality indicators have acquired a clear place in national and regional monitoring activities. Some indicators are reported more often than others. These differences partly reflect differences between healthcare systems. Whereas some indicators have become very common, such as cancer care indicators, others, such as mental healthcare and patient experience indicators are relatively new and require some more time to be adopted more widely.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 9, 22660, 1100 DD, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Alexandru M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Rotar
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 9, 22660, 1100 DD, Amsterdam, The Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), PO Box 1, 3720 BA Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: van den Berg
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 9, 22660, 1100 DD, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Dionne S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Kringos
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 9, 22660, 1100 DD, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Niek S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Klazinga
mesh_terms: D019049:Developed Countries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D066150:Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development / Q000592:standards*; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care / Q000592:standards; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards
keywords: OECD; health policy; healthcare quality indicators; performance indicators; quality of health care; reporting