International Journal for Quality in Health Care Advance Access originally published online on March 23, 2005
International Journal for Quality in Health Care 2005 17(4):347-355; doi:10.1093/intqhc/mzi034
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The insufficiency of evidence to establish the business case for quality
1 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Health Policy and Administration, Chapel Hill, NC, USA and 2 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Purpose. To determine whether a positive financial return on investment for quality-enhancing interventions is more likely for particular health conditions, in specific organizational settings, or with the use of particular interventions.
Data sources. Electronic search of MEDLINE®.
Data extraction. Search keywords included: business case, cost-effectiveness, cost-benefit, return on investment, costs, cost savings, quality, quality improvement, and program evaluation.
Results. Only 15 of 1968 articles identified contained sufficient information on both the costs of implementing quality-enhancing interventions and the resultant changes in costs of care or revenues to permit the calculation of a return on investment.
Conclusions. Scant attention is currently paid in the quality-of-care literature to the cost of implementing quality-enhancing interventions. To understand which quality-enhancing interventions are likely to produce positive returns on investments, data collection and analysis must include tracking the investment and operating costs of implementing the intervention as well as the changes in revenues and costs that result from the intervention.
Keywords: cost of care, health services utilization, quality-enhancing intervention, quality of care, return on investment
Address reprint requests to Kerry Kilpatrick, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Health Policy and Administration, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7411, USA. E-mail: kerry_kilpatrick{at}unc.edu
Accepted for publication February 4, 2005.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  G. Arling, C. Job, and V. Cooke Medicaid Nursing Home Pay for Performance: Where Do We Stand? Gerontologist, May 20, 2009; (2009) gnp044v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 S. Leatherman and K. Sutherland Designing national quality reforms: a framework for action Int. J. Qual. Health Care, December 1, 2007; 19(6): 334 - 340. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 S. E S Brown, M. H Chin, and E. S Huang Estimating costs of quality improvement for outpatient healthcare organisations: a practical methodology Qual. Saf. Health Care, August 1, 2007; 16(4): 248 - 251. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
K. L. Reiter, K. E. Kilpatrick, S. B. Greene, K. N. Lohr, and S. Leatherman How to develop a business case for quality Int. J. Qual. Health Care, February 1, 2007; 19(1): 50 - 55. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
T Smith From rhetoric to reality: the need for external quality initiatives to understand and better relate to organisational inner worlds Qual. Saf. Health Care, December 1, 2005; 14(6): 459 - 461. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|