Tangerine_juicers

Will Healthcare Providers “Game” Quality Measures?

February 18, 2010

     I just read an interesting post over at John Goodman\’s Health Policy Blog, “What We Can Learn From The Airlines.” Picking up on a story that 79.5% of all U.S. flights were on time last year, he points out that airlines have simply lengthened the “scheduled time” of their flights to improve the chances of “on time arrivals.” He goes on to suggest that healthcare providers faced with third-party quality measures will do the same, yielding better measured quality, but no real improvement in quality of care.

     Even assuming the airline assumption is correct (it wouldn\’t surprise me, but I really don\’t know), I don\’t think the conclusion holds for healthcare. Providers will not be able to manipulate the standards imposed by third parties in a way analogous to lengthening scheduled flight times. Perhaps the airline analogy was stretched a bit too far, and his real point is that providers will achieve quality measures in the same way that public school teachers now teach to standardized tests (by which their “quality” is judged). 

     The more interesting aspect of third-party quality improvement measures is that they can only have so much effect before “quality” levels off. Although a worthy goal, that range of improvement is not going to move mountains. The same is true for many of the economic incentive techniques being touted as cost cutting solutions for healthcare (e.g. “gainsharing”). You can only squeeze so much juice out of each tangerine.

 [Image: Tangerine juicers via flickr, by Photocapy, December 13, 2006]