To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (508235 ) 8/27/2009 2:29:11 PM From: Brumar89 Respond to The study published by a leftwing institute admits its findings are shaky. That many of their claims are based on survey data which measure perceptions and expections, inherently nebulous especially when international comparisons are being made. Also they admit there are inherent problems making international comparisons. There is modest research literature comparing the quality of care in the United States with the quality of care furnished elsewhere . Most studies of technical quality or effectiveness draw on data compiled from disease registries, medical records or administrative data. Such studies generally focus on a particular condition, such as coronary heart disease or specific forms of cancer, and they differ in the extent to which they endeavor to account for factors outside the control of the health care provider and system that could affect the results.Limitations include differences in data sources used in measurement, different reporting periods, and limited ability to adjust for age and other factors (not reflecting quality of care differences) that can explain apparent cross-national differences. Beyond this, surveys of citizens, patients and health care providers in five or more countries have been produced annually since 1998 by the Commonwealth Fund.56 These provide information on how health care is perceived as well as how the experience of health care differs internationally in relation to public expectations. Surveys can explore aspects of health care and quality dimensions for which other forms of data do not exist in comparable form. Their limitations include cross-country differences in the interpretation of questions and concepts , which could affect how countries’ health systems fare relative to one another, as well as standard survey research problems like recall bias. An important issue in health care quality measurement, as in other types of research that attempt to ascertain causality, is that it is very difficult to adjust for factors outside the health care system which contribute to particular health outcomes, such as socioeconomic status, lifestyle, and disease incidence or prevalence. While U.S. life expectancy is at or below the average in comparison with that of other developed countries, findings from research that has adjusted mortality to account for deaths not related to health care (so-called amenable Message 25874082 Quality of cancer care There is an important link between survival rates and screening rates for many cancers (e.g., melanoma, prostate cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer).
