Outcomes and their management

There is a growing demand on the part of a wide variety of consumers to document and trend outcomes of health care interventions. To avoid confusion, it is important to clarify the many dimensions of outcome terminology. At the core, patient-related outcomes signify the result or effects of care processes. There are three major categories of outcomes: clinical, financial, and traditional (eg, morbidity, mortality, readmissions). Clinical outcomes have the least historical and aggregate data available and are currently the focus of major efforts for definition and quantification. Changes in the health care environment are also refocusing where outcomes are measured, from the traditional acute care base to a more continuum or episode outlook. This will require new strategies to collect outcome data in various sites across the continuum.