Critical pathways: the next generation of outcomes tracking

In summary, for each critical path you should have financial, quality, variance analysis, health-related quality of life and patient satisfaction outcome measures that should be reported as a package in a frequency established by the organization. These measures must complement the overall critical path program goals and objectives. The data must also be provided to the critical path teams to analyze and define where there may be opportunities for improvement. This puts the data analysis and responsibility of care processes into the hands of the clinicians where it belongs and not with administration. Administration provides the vehicles for the data; the clinicians provide the analysis.