Sequist Thomas D, Cullen Theresa, Ayanian John Z
Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02120, USA.
Am J Public Health. 2005 Dec;95(12):2173-9. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2004.052985. Epub 2005 Oct 27.
The American Indian/Alaska Native population experiences a disproportionate burden of disease across a spectrum of conditions. While the recent National Healthcare Disparities Report highlighted differences in quality of care among racial and ethnic groups, there was only very limited information available for American Indians. The Indian Health Service (IHS) is currently enhancing its information systems to improve the measurement of health care quality as well as to support quality improvement initiatives. We summarize current knowledge regarding health care quality for American Indians, highlighting the variation in reported measures in the existing literature. We then discuss how the IHS is using information systems to produce standardized performance measures and present future directions for improving American Indian health care quality.
美国印第安人/阿拉斯加原住民在一系列疾病中承受着不成比例的疾病负担。尽管最近的《国家医疗保健差异报告》强调了不同种族和族裔群体在医疗保健质量上的差异,但关于美国印第安人的信息却非常有限。印第安卫生服务局(IHS)目前正在加强其信息系统,以改进医疗保健质量的衡量,并支持质量改进计划。我们总结了关于美国印第安人医疗保健质量的现有知识,突出了现有文献中报告指标的差异。然后,我们讨论了印第安卫生服务局如何利用信息系统来制定标准化的绩效指标,并提出了改善美国印第安人医疗保健质量的未来方向。