Health Care Quality Indicators Project 2006 Data Collection Update Report

This report is an update to the OECD Health Working Paper No. 22, Health Care Quality Indicators Project: Initial Indicators Report that was based on data collected between 2003 and 2005 and released in 2006. That report presented the OECD’s initial work on developing a set of health care quality indicators that could be used to raise questions about differences in quality of care across countries. The 2006 report covered 21 “initial indicators” with data provided by 24 countries. It identified 17 of these indicators as being fit for international comparisons of which 4 were identified as needing further work. Following the release of that report in March 2006, the OECD undertook a second round of data collection on the initial indicator set and also gathered data for the first time on new indicators in a questionnaire sent to participating HCQI countries. This paper reports on the results of that second round of data collection. Data is presented here on an augmented indicator set considered fit for the purpose of making international comparisons on quality of health care. The data is comprised of 19 indicators (17 initial indicators plus 2 new ones). The paper also presents the data provided on 7 other indicators that are not yet considered fit for international comparison. In this round of data collection, data were reported by 32 countries...