Table 3.

Studies by Reported Association Between Health Care Cost and Quality

Variable	Studies by Reported Association Between Health Care Cost and Quality, n
	Positive	Negative	Imprecise or Indeterminate, Mixed, or No Difference
Level of analysis
Patient	3	1	1
Provider
Disease management program	1	0	0
Hospital	13	10	6
Nursing home	2	1	5
Physician	0	1	2
Provider group	0	0	2
Region
Area	2	5	5
Health plan	0	0	1
All	21	18	22
Cost measure type
Accounting costs	11	4	9
Care intensity index	4	6	3
Charges	1	3	0
Expenditure	5	5	10
All	21	18	22
Quality measure type*
Access	0	3	1
Composite measure	0	1	1
Outcome	17	10	14
Patient experience	2	3	3
Process	6	5	8
Structure	3	2	0
All	28	24	27

^*15 studies included quality measures in multiple domains.