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American Journal of Public Health logoLink to American Journal of Public Health
. 1978 Jul;68(7):645–651. doi: 10.2105/ajph.68.7.645

On the statistical validity of standards used in profile monitoring of health care.

W E McAuliffe
PMCID: PMC1653996  PMID: 566519

Abstract

In current methods of profile monitoring, standards of acceptability (cut-offs) are set either by consulting panels of experts, or by selecting an arbitrary point (e.g., the 75th percentile) on the profile (statistical distribution). However, experts have only vague ideas of what outcome rates ought to be, while profile statistics stem from samples for which unknown percentages of cases have received acceptable care. Poorly chosen standards could cause profile monitoring to be ineffective, inefficient, or unnecessarily disruptive. A new method proposes to set standards by using statistics for which the percentage of adequate care has been predetermined by examining the process of care. Plans to circumvent the pitfalls involved are described, as are two approaches to estimating the degree of process adequacy from routinely produced outcome rates.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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