Measuring of the quality of health care: a decision oriented typology.

Numerous methodologies have been devised to measure various aspects of the quality of health care. Revised bibliographies of articles of articles reporting these methodologies are made available periodically. This paper is an attempt to devise a use ful framework for cataloguing these methods in order that health care planners and administrators can readily assess the means available to quantify aspects of health care under their scrutiny. A decision tree is presented for the decision maker to follow through according to his requirements, and a discussion presents a brief summary of the methods in each particular category. Gaps indicating the need for further research are identified.