The relationship between quality of care and financial performance in dialysis: "doing well by doing good"

Dialysis is an archetype for the application of the principles of continuous quality improvement (CQI) to medicine. Dialysis treatment dosage and hematocrit values are just two examples of data that can be readily obtained for reliable and valid quality analysis and improvement of the dialysis process. A dialysis CQI program should focus on the improvement of care processes to effect improvements in patient outcomes and should function through the teamwork of caregivers at all levels within an organization. By succeeding in the continuous improvement of the multiple processes involved in the delivery of chronic dialysis to patients, dialysis providers can expect to see improvement in patient outcomes and, as a direct result, improvement in financial performance, both in the fee-for-service, as well as in the capitated model of reimbursement.