title: Assuring quality health care outcomes: lessons learned from car dealers?
abstract: Health care systems want quality but struggle to find the right tools because, typically, they track quality in only one or two ways. Because of the complexity of health care, high quality will emerge only when health care systems employ multiple approaches, including, importantly, patient-reported outcome perspectives. Sustained changes are unlikely to emerge in the absence of such multipronged interventions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Joel E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Dimsdale
keywords: hospital accreditation; patient satisfaction; patient-related outcomes; quality assurance