Linking process and outcome in quality of care assessment [hospitals]

To examine the relationship between process and outcome measures of quality of care, peer review organization (PRO) generic screen failure rates were compared to residual mortality in all Wisconsin general medical/surgical hospitals. The median rank of the generic screen failure rates in hospitals within the lowest quartile of residual mortality rates was significantly lower than the median rank of the generic screen failure rates of the highest quartile of residual mortality rates (P=0.008 by the Kruskal-Wallis test). The outcome measure of residual mortality rates is related to the process measure of PRO generic screen failure rates