Quality and Satisfaction

There is a lot of confusion about the word "quality." In healthcare, everyone claims to have high quality, except few providers offer data to prove it.

For example, it is amusing to those outside of the health care industry that every health care provider claims to have high quality. But as any expert in quality management will argue, if you're not measuring your performance, you have no business what's over claiming you have quality.

Experts in quality management define high quality as "a reduction of variation about the mean." In automobiles, quality manufacturing means that the distance between a fender and a hood is the same distance in every car, or that the paint is free of defects in every car.

In healthcare, there can be a lot of variation. The human body is complex, and every patient is different and needs individualized, custom care, not "cookie cutter" medicine.

Improving the Quality of Health Care

The first step toward improving quality is to collect data that documents patient severity at the time of first appointment. After receiving care, the functional status of the patient should be measured, along with patient satisfaction. Durango Orthopedics is one of the few physician groups in the state of Colorado doing these clinical outcome studies for the purpose of continually improving the quality of care provided to patients.

Clinical outcome systems are the study of a patients recovery from the time they go to the doctor to when they return to work or activity. The outcome data allows the doctors to monitor each patient's progress and compare it to other patients with the same problem. Such tracking systems assure the doctor that the highest quality treatment was delivered. Clinical outcome systems provide quantifiable data based on the patients experiences, feelings and treatment.

The last misconception about quality is that "quality" is like a destination. In reality, quality is a journey where you never arrive. At Durango Orthopedics, we are continually striving to improve.

It is our hope that by continually measuring ourselves, we will continue to improve the quality of care provided to patients, as well as remain sensitive to patient satisfaction.

How Tracking Treatment Information Improves Healthcare

By collecting information on patients' conditions following treatment, doctors and therapists can customize future care protocols based on what worked best in the past. The field of health care is always changing, and doctors are always trying to find the best possible way to treat a health care problem. Asking patients for their input and focusing on which treatments worked best is the only way doctors can improve their care of problems.

As a patient of Durango Orthopedics, we may ask you how you're doing and what you thought of our service to you. Your answers are important in helping us to continually improve. We thank you in advance for your time and feedback.

Durango Orthopedics Clinical Data Outcome

In the coming months, we will begin to post clinical outcome data for review.