When Is It Worth Introducing a Quality Improvement Program? A Mathematical Model

Afschin Gandjour and Karl Wilhelm Lauterbach

Medical Decision Making, 2003, vol. 23, issue 6, 518-525

Abstract: Quality improvement programs must compete with other health care interventions for limited health care resources. The goal of the research presented here was to develop a model that portrays the mathematical relationship between the size of a quality deficit caused by the noncompliance of health professionals and the cost-effectiveness of a quality improvement program. The model allows the determination of the minimum size of a quality deficit for which it is worth introducinga quality improvement program. If a quality improvement program has already been implemented, the model can be used to define the quality threshold beyond which a reduction in quality becomes economically unattractive. An example consideringthe reduction of underuse in depression treatment demonstrates that an intervention with a favorable cost-effectiveness ratio may become economically unattractive once the costs for the implementation effort are considered.

Date: 2003
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:medema:v:23:y:2003:i:6:p:518-525

DOI: 10.1177/0272989X03258441

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