Comparative Data in Healthcare Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Comparative Data in Healthcare - Term Paper Example The use of such information can help healthcare funders as well as practitioners identify problem areas in clinical performance and enhance quality improvement strategies (Powell, Davies, & Thomson, 2003). On the other hand, patient benefit by having the capacity to make informed choices of a care provider based quality standards and competitive costs (Davies, & Marshall, 1999). There are several ways in which comparative data is useful in improving quality and performance in health care organizations (Powell, Davies, & Thomson, 2003). Comparative data is efficient in pointing out problems related to clinical performance. Even though, outcome of quality of care given to a patient is easily measured as a whole, analyzing performance data of an individual practitioner can shade some the light. Quality of clinical performance can also be measured using comparative data across departments of different hospitals. For instance survival or a recovery rate of patients admitted to cardiac and orthopaedic surgery across different hospitals can be compared to rate clinical performance (Goodroe, 2010). Comparative data is also useful in informing and driving quality improvement activities in a healthcare organization (Powell, Davies, & Thomson, 2003). Such data provides useful and specific information on quality improvement strategies used by best performing institutions. Even though quality improvement is a standard goal for all healthcare institution. (Davies, & Marshall, 1999)