Abstract

TAMARGO BARBEITO, Teddy Osmin  and  JIMENEZ PANEQUE, Rosa Eugenia. Risk-adjustment in the assessment of hospital performance. Rev Cubana Salud Pública [online]. 2009, vol.35, n.3. ISSN 0864-3466.

Outcome indicators are an essential part of the hospital care quality assessment. They are also attractive elements that allow estimating the benefits that hospital brings to the community, but they are not useful in spatial and time comparisons if they are not adjusted to the characteristics of those patients included in the indicator calculations. The first notion of this requirement dated back to the 19th century, and at the middle of the 20th century, the risk-adjustment had already been included in the comparison of hospital performances in the developed countries. However, risk-adjusted spatial and time comparisons of outcomes inside the hospital or between hospitals or hospital services are not made in Cuba yet. The present paper attempted to submit this topic to the interested people and to pave the way for debate around the best form of introducing the risk-adjustment since it is essential for hospital performance assessments.

Keywords : Risk adjustment; hospital performance; quality.

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