Evaluating the quality of care in rheumatic diseases.

Overview

An understanding of the level of health care quality and the factors that affect it is necessary for providers and insurers to optimize health outcomes for patients and should be carefully considered when making decisions about resource allocation. Additionally, information about health care quality can be used by patients and others to inform decisions about the purchase of health care. Although much work has been done to characterize the quality of health care, little is known about the quality of care for the rheumatic diseases. This paper reviews what is known about health care quality for these diseases.