Process Metrics and Outcomes to Inform Quality Improvement in Pediatric Hospital Medicine.

This article provides an overview of the selection, development, and use of process and outcome measures for pediatric hospital medicine quality improvement initiatives. It reviews commonly used categories of process and outcome measures and provides a list of common sources and repositories of previously validated measures. It also provides a blueprint for the development of novel measures. The relative merits of various data collection methods are discussed (eg, medical record abstraction, administrative, surveys), along with guiding principles for disseminating the results of quality improvement evaluations on a local and national level.