Methodological development and evaluation of 30-day mortality as quality indicator for Norwegian hospitals

Abstract

Indicators of the quality of health care are often used as a means of evaluation and monitoring trends in health care quality, identifying patients having received varying care and evaluating treatment methods. In this context, a quality indicator is defined as a statistical value, for fixed and current time-periods, indicating how certain processes function or whether specific outcomes have been achieved. One of the suggested outcome quality indicators is probability of death after 30 days (or 30-day mortality (30D), which seems to be the most commonly, used term in the literature, although 30-day case fatality is a more proper term). Evaluating hospital health care quality includes not only evaluating treatment of diseases, but also evaluating administrative routines and processes, such as number of days at hospital, delay to operation, not enough capacity for patients, etc.

Dødelighet 30 dager etter innleggelse som kvalitetsindikator for norske sykehus – metodeutvikling og evaluering