The Quality of Health Care Delivered to Adults in the United States

We have little systematic information about the extent to which standard processes involved in health care--a key element of quality--are delivered in the United States.

We telephoned a random sample of adults living in 12 metropolitan areas in the United States and asked them about selected health care experiences. We also received written consent to copy their medical records for the most recent two-year period and used this information to evaluate performance on 439 indicators of quality of care for 30 acute and chronic conditions as well as preventive care. We then constructed aggregate scores.