Health Conference MacLean Quality      

The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics
The John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics
The Law School
and The Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies
announce

Quality Health Care:

Can We Identify It? Can We Achieve It?

Co-Directed by
Mark Siegler and Richard A. Epstein

Friday, November 2, 2001
and Saturday, November 3, 2001

University of Chicago Law School
1111 East 60th Street
Program Description Faculty

Abstracts and Paper Submissions Acknowledgements

Conference Information and Registration

Conference Program

Friday, November 2, 2001
8:15 a.m. Registration
Continental Breakfast
8:45 – 9:00 Opening Remarks
Saul Levmore
9:00 – 10:40 Session 1: What’s the Quality of Quality of Care Measures?
Speaker:Marshall Chin
Respondents: Matthew Klionsky
Michael J. Koetting
Audience Questions
11:00 – 12:40 Session 2: Purchasing Health Care for Quality
Speaker: Robert Galvin
Respondents: Arnold Milstein
Richard A. Epstein
Audience Questions
12:40 – 2:00 Lunch at the Law School
2:00 – 3:40 Session 3: Does Quality of Care Matter to Medicare?
Speaker:Ralph Muller
Respondents: Edward Lawlor
David Hyman
Audience Questions
4:00 – 5:40 Session 4: Quality of Care: Where’s the Beef?
Speaker:Bruce Vladeck
Respondents: Samuel Hellman
Steve Miles
Audience Questions
Saturday, November 3, 2001
8:00 Continental Breakfast
8:30 – 8:45 Opening Remarks
Mark Siegler
8:45 – 10:25 Session 5: Is There a Business Case for Quality?
Speaker: Lawrence Casalino
Respondents: Michael Riordan
Steve D. Small
Audience Questions
10:45 – 12:25 Session 6: Geography and Health Care Quality
Speaker: Jack Wennberg
Respondents: Jonathan S. Skinner
Elliott S. Fisher
Audience Questions
12:25 Concluding Remarks
12:30 Lunch at the Law School




Abstracts


What's the Quality of Quality of Care Measures?
Marshall Chin
Much attention has been directed towards recent movements to measure health outcomes and the quality of medical care. While significant advances have been made in the ability to measure the quality of care validly, several major methodological challenges remain. We provide a conceptual framework for analyzing the quality of health care measures that outlines the purpose of the measures, Donabedian’s structure-process-outcome and continuous quality improvement paradigms, and elements including scope, time, unit of analysis, and perspective. Normative methods of measuring quality include explicit and implicit review methods, and the analysis of case-mix adjusted outcomes. Subjective methods involving patient satisfaction and input are also growing. The reality of quality of care and the most appropriate measures depend upon whose perspective one takes and the purpose of the measures. However, the current state of quality of care measurement is adequate for both accountability and quality improvement purposes if the measures are chosen wisely. Overall, patient preferences and organizational contexts have been underemphasized, and should be incorporated in the framework for conceptualizing quality of care.

The papers presented at this conference will be published in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. Paper submission guidelines can be found here.



Acknowledgements


The Conference Directors wish to acknowledge and thank the following individuals and organizations whose encouragement and formal support made this conference possible: Barry and Mary Ann MacLean and the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, Connie and Dennis Keller and the Doctor-Patient Initiative Program, The John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at The University of Chicago Law School, Merck & Co., Inc., Pfizer, Inc., and Irving B. Harris and the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies.




This conference is brought to you by

The Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies