Although the quality of outpatient care in the United States has improved over the last decade, greater use of evidence-based medicine is needed, however, and quality of care is not significantly associated with the patient's racial or ethnic background, according to a study in the June 27 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
The recently released National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) identified a variety of areas where health care has markedly improved across time and is now reaching or surpassing national performance goals, as well as many more areas where the quality of health care delivery is suboptimal, according to background information in the article. Its companion document, the National Healthcare Disparities Report, demonstrated that racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health care are national problems. However, the authors suggest, limited use has been made of readily available national survey data to measure quality of care and racial disparities in outpatient settings.
Jun Ma, M.D., Ph.D., and Randall S. Stafford, M.D., Ph.D., of Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif., used data from the two national surveys of outpatient care to assess overall performance and racial/ethnic disparities in private physician offices and hospital outpatient departments in 1992 and 2002. The researchers examined 23 outpatient quality indicators, including appropriate antibiotic use, treatment of depression, avoiding unnecessary screening and avoiding inappropriate medications in the elderly. Quality indicator performance was defined as the percentage of applicable visits receiving appropriate care.