Assess your quality of care quotient

The upsurge of large, single/multi-specialty group practices in contemporary health care has precipitated a corresponding surge in marketing strategies aimed at promoting group speed, efficiency, and/or productivity. Subsequently, the quality of care is often overlooked or redefined in financial terms. However, assessing quality of care--above and beyond strictly economic factors--can provide crucial information for executives concerned with making informed managerial decisions. This article explores one prototypical physician group's quest to assess their "quality care quotient," and explicates the process by which they obtained important data from patients, as well as how they used the assessment to improve their practice. The process may serve as an exemplar to physician groups concerned with conducting such analyses.