Asthma health status. Ongoing measurement in the context of continuous quality improvement.

There are no widely accepted measures of health status for asthmatic patients, and these must be developed. Criteria for good health status measures are described. Their intended use determines their form. The concepts of continuous quality improvement (CQI) are used here to define a new perspective about asthma health status measures. In the context of CQI, a patient-centered continuous measurement can be used to understand and reduce variance in health status. Ongoing health status measures can be applied to groups of patients or individuals. Medical students collected data about the health status of their asthmatic patients as part of a project to introduce them to CQI. These results are presented as an example of this new direction.