What is the Quality of Care in a Developing Country: Measuring Physician Practice and Health Outcomes
Abstract
The objectives of this dissertation are to provide a better understanding on how to measure the quality of health care in a less developed country in an effort to furnish an instrument for improving clinical care and national health policy formulation. The audience of this work thus includes health care practitioners as well as policymakers. To accomplish the stated objectives, this research will initially analyze the relationship between structural measures of quality with the clinical knowledge (process) of physicians. Subsequently, we will analyze the impact of clinical knowledge, and by association, clinical practice of primary health providers on the health status of a population. Improving health care requires skillful practitioners to selectively use their knowledge, medical expertise, and medical technologies. The combination of what providers do and what they have to work with are the basic inputs that are expected to result in better health. when better health does not result, however, the responsibility is often assigned to the lack of material inputs. This is particularly true in developing countries where clinical facilities and medicine are obviously lacking. And while material inputs could be wanting, poor clinical practice could be an even more important explanation
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA404923
Entities
People
- Jorge A. Munoz
Organizations
- RAND Corporation