A quantitative index for evaluating patient care with longitudinal data.

This paper describes a patient-outcome based index of the quality of health care useful to health services researchers and planners. This index is applicable in any health care situation where longitudinal data are available from patients who can be classified into mutually exclusive stages of severity by functional status, psychological well-being or diagnosis and followed over a period of time. The rationale of the index is presented, along with an illustrative example based on a study on long-term care. The procedure for generating weights for the index is briefly described.