The impact of ranking of health care providers on the quality of medical care services

<p>The study deals with the published ratings of health care providers as a mechanism for external quality management of medical care.</p><p>One of the most socially important spheres of state activity is public health. At the moment in Russia the government is attempting to develop and improve the efficiency in that sector, however, many problems, associated with the quality of medical services, remain relevant. Existing problems are partly caused by the fact that there are no effective tools for quality assessment and management of medical services in Russia. Due to the abovementioned problem, it can be highly necessary to create the ranking of health care providers in order to characterize the significance and position of medical organizations on the main indicators of their clinical activity.</p><p>Recently the issue of this paper has been brought forefront for the Russian health care system, because the generally accepted method of ranking health care organizations still has not existed in our country.</p><p>Thus the object of this study is ratings of health care providers. The subject is impact of ratings of health care providers on improving the quality of care.</p><p>The aim of this research is to analyze Russian and foreign experience of using ratings of medical organizations as a mechanism for improving quality of health care.</p><p>To achieve this goal the following tasks should be solved:</p><p style="margin-left:74.65pt;">1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; to justify the choice of the quality of medical care as the basis for ratings of health care providers;</p><p style="margin-left:74.65pt;">2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; to demonstrate the possibility of applying of ratings of health care providers as a tool for assessing and managing the quality of medical services;</p><p style="margin-left:74.65pt;">3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; to analyze foreign experience of using the ratings of health care providers to improve the quality of medical services;</p><p style="margin-left:74.65pt;">4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; to analyze Russian experience of using the ratings of health care providers to improve the quality of medical services;</p><p style="margin-left:74.65pt;">5.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; to formulate recommendations for improvement Russian rankings of health care providers.</p><p>Two main research methods of this study are an analysis of foreign (U.S. News &amp; World Report, Truven 100 top hospitals, etc.) and Russian ratings of medical organizations (&quot;Expert RA&quot;, Kirovskaya region, Arkhangelskaya region, Vladimirskaya region, etc.) and two in-depth expert interviews.</p><p>As for results, a lot of countries rank their medical organizations because these rankings can help the authorities to improve the quality of the health care by many ways. Ratings of health care providers promote competition among medical institutions for the patients, give the authorities the access to the information about the market structure of health care providers. What is more, they improve the staff motivation and promote a more efficient allocation of resources and specialists. But the most important fact is that ratings of health care providers really stimulate the growth of the quality of care in medical organizations.</p><p>Unfortunately, at the moment Russian ranking culture just beginning to emerge. In connection with this fact, there are only the ratings based on a subjective patient&#39;s assessment, or experimental ratings in some regions. However, despite the fact that a lot of medical organizations have been ranked in regions, methodologies of the majority of rankings were not suitable for assessing the quality. Due to these problems the list of recommendations was proposed in this study.</p>