The Quality of Health Care Providers

57 Pages Posted: 13 Mar 2000 Last revised: 9 Jan 2022

See all articles by Mark B. McClellan

Mark B. McClellan

Brookings Institution; Council of Economic Advisors; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Douglas Staiger

Dartmouth College - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: August 1999

Abstract

Obtaining better information on the quality of health care providers is one of the most pressing issues in health policy today. In this paper we (1) develop a new method for measuring quality of care that overcomes the key limitations of available quality measures, and (2) apply this method to estimating the quality of hospital care for elderly patients with heart disease. Our approach optimally combines information from all available current and past quality indicators in order to more accurately estimate and forecast each provider's quality level. For patients with heart disease, the method is able to predict and forecast differences in patient outcomes across hospitals remarkably well - far better than existing methods. Our approach also provides an empirical basis for choosing among potential quality indicators. In particular, we find that differences across hospitals in short-term mortality rates following a heart attack, adjusted for patient demographics, are excellent indicators of quality of care: They vary dramatically across hospitals, are persistent over time, are highly correlated with alternative quality indicators, and are highly correlated with mortality rates that adjust more extensively for patient severity. Thus, comparing quality of care across providers may be far more feasible than many now believe.

Suggested Citation

McClellan, Mark B. and Staiger, Douglas, The Quality of Health Care Providers (August 1999). NBER Working Paper No. w7327, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=196391

Mark B. McClellan (Contact Author)

Brookings Institution ( email )

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Council of Economic Advisors ( email )

Eisenhower Executive Office Building
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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Douglas Staiger

Dartmouth College - Department of Economics ( email )

Hanover, NH 03755
United States
603-643-2979 (Phone)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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