Assessment of medical outcomes. New opportunities for achieving a long sought-after objective.

Health outcome assessment may be used for a variety of purposes: to evaluate the effectiveness of medical practices; to assess the quality of services provided; to educate providers, purchasers, and users of health services about the sequelae of treated and untreated disease; to guide reimbursement and regulatory policy; and to characterize the health status of a population. This article focuses on the use of health outcomes to evaluate the effectiveness of medical practices and to assess the quality of services provided.